Star Trek: Schism
by AjaxTorbin
Summary: A unique ship, a unique crew and a mission to protect other ships exploring the Gamma Quadrant. (((NOTE, divided story into readable parts rather than the publication format I usually use))) Rated M for violent themes that will be added later.
1. Chapter 1

**Part One**

_The Crew_

Space warped, time bent and a small ship warped in from subspace.

"Katana to Earth control." intoned a gravel like voice from the tactical station in a corner of the cramped bridge.

"This is earth control, go ahead Katana,"

"USS Katana NCC-76034, requesting orbit permission and a repair dock queue status."

A voice responded after a moment, "Katana, orbit permission granted. But all repair docks are shut down for the ceremony tonight."

"Understood. Katana out."

The Katana was different from most saber class ships, different from most ships in Starfleet for that matter, it had an integrated bridge, no turbo lift was needed to leave it.

Touching a control to shut down the subspace channel the owner of the gravel voice turned from his station, strode to the rear of the room and exited into a long corridor, walking until reaching a specific door. Pressing the admittance key he entered when the door opened and stood at loose attention.

The man inside looked amused at the lieutenant's entrance. _No matter how many times I see that it still brings a smile to my face_. The first thing one would notice about lieutenant Orrourak was his size, he was an imposing 2.15 meters tall and while his size would grab your attention it was the rest of him that kept it. He, well, he looked like an oversized koala, a seven foot tall, wire haired, harness wearing, _robust_, koala. _Black nose, beady little brown eyes, fluffy ears,_ yea, _a huge koala. _ Anyone that spent any time with him though could tell you he was anything but a koala. His strength was disproportionate to his size, he could probably punch a hole in the deck if wanted to and then there was that fur, that thick, dense, wiry, cream colored fur. Fur that could take the punch out of a phaser blast.

But the captain said nothing, just smiled as the seven foot furball called Orruorak stooped slightly and sidestepped to enter his room.

Flipping a large oversize drafting PADD toward him he asked, "What do 'ya think lieutenant?"

After studying the diagram a moment, that concrete scraping concrete voice that was heard reciting poetry as often as tactical reports responded, "It looks like an Acadian slug."

The captain sighed, "Everyone's a critic. So what's up? Are we there yet?"

"We entered the Sol system a few minutes ago and we have been cleared for orbit."

"I'm sensing a 'but' there."

"But, all the repair slips are shut down, some kind of ceremony, whatever it is the whole system is at yellow alert."

Reaching across his deck the captain retrieved a normal sized a more normal sized PADD and handed it to Orruorak, "Read this. It's why we're here instead of our normal haunts at Starbase 24 ."

After reading the message on the device he set the thing down and composed his thoughts on the contents, Orruorak snorted his reply, "No wonder the whole system is under high alert." he paused but went on when the captain made a little 'go on' motion with his hand, "and the rest, is cryptic."

The captain slid back further into his chair and nodded, "Yes, that was my impression also."

"Will it affect us again?"

"No. I think not. Well, no more than it taking longer for our repairs."

"Ah, angling for shore leave." Orruorak guessed.

"Exactly." he smiled back

Orruorak's reply was cut off by the chirping of the captains' combadge.

"Bridge to captain Kayetan."

"Kayetan here, go ahead Chief."

"Sir, the USS Ajax is hailing. Mastermind wants to see you." said chief Inuzaki, the helmsman, with more than a note of glee in his voice. Mastermind referred to Captain Alexander Tanton, an old friend of Kayetan's and something of a legend among the crew as Kayetan liked to tell stories about their days at the academy. The Mastermind was a private nickname, referring to a joke they'd played on an instructor.

"I'll take it on the bridge, chief."

"Alright sir, I'll tell him you'll be a moment. Bridge out."

Upon reaching the bridge Kayetan saw the blue green orb that was Earth filling the view screen, its myriad of satellites, manmade and otherwise orbiting like a pack of angry bees.

_Well_, thought captain Kristoffer Ingram Kayetan, commanding officer, USS Katana, _I'm home for what that's worth,_ but instead he said, "Put him on."

By the time they got everything squared away and got to the 'party' it was in full force. But they were still there before everything was set, other groups were still arriving and a work crew was putting the final touches on the decorations. The whole crew was here, somewhere. Only Orruorak, Commander Hiss'toor Sharr Lallal, Lieutenant Tarna Raden, their Bajoran operations officer and Kayetan stayed in a group.

It was a large outdoor area, a courtyard in the middle of starfleet command, right on the shore stretching out over the water on a jetty. That part had struck Kayetan as odd, not the jetty itself but the dais was on it, a large platform had been erected and seating for about a hundred people set on top. _ I would have put it front of the headquarters emblem. _ He thought, referring to the twenty meter Starfleet delta that covered the front of the main building.

There were over a thousand sentient's here already, mingling, talking, eating, drinking. News crews from all corners of the Federation had people here, even some from outside the Federation he amended as he noticed a group of Breen in their armored environmental suits.

Their little group had snagged some drinks off a passing waiter's tray but they otherwise hadn't mingled. No surprise there. Their numbers included Orruorak, who's massive bear-like bulk was enough to make anyone think twice about approaching. And then there was Commander Hiss'toor, he was not even a meter and a half tall but it wasn't his height that was imposing. It was just hard for some people to get used to a being that looked more like an over-sized, armored Terran gecko than anything else.

It wasn't that unique physiology that so amused Lieutenant Tarna right now. It was watching her three superiors interact with each other and the crowd. At some point after the three had met, they decided that it was their sacred duty to comment on the action of the universe around them, often with an undertone of the wry humor they all shared. And for that end they had for the last few minutes watched, and commented on the Tellarite delegation as they slowly chased the Andorian delegation around the square.

"Red alert." said Kayetan. "Andorians moving again."

"Hmmm. Yess. The hunt beginss again." replied Hiss'toor as the Tellarites moved to intercept.

"The prey moves confidently as they are stalked across the arena of diplomacy." Orruorak stated as if announcing a sporting event, "They must have something up their sleeves." he finished narrowing his gaze as the blue skinned aliens 'drifted' deeper into the crowd.

"I think you're right," responded Kayetan, "they're moving towards the Klingons."

"Hmm. Like one of thosse wolveriness you told me about taking refuge with a bear." summed up Hiss'toor turning to the captain.

"Exactly." affirmed Kayetan.

The Klingons had arrived not long after the officers of the Katana had and immediately started to drink, slugging down everything from blood wine to saurian brandy. It went without saying that most of the partygoers were giving them a wide berth.

"What would drive an Andorian to take refuge with Klingons?" mused Orruorak.

"When that Andorian is trying to avoid finalizing giving away the rights to a large portion of a wealthy asteroid belt." Cut in a smooth voice from behind them.

Turning around the four of them saw a green skinned woman near them standing near two other women who were obviously related to her. Actually, the three of them together looked rather like a time elapsed photograph of one woman growing taller and greener as she aged.

They were Tala, Zillianna, and Cartia; Alex's Grandmother, mother and sister, respectively.

Kayetan smiled back, "I was beginning to wonder if you three would show"

"Of course we would, you boys are like family." said Tala smiling all the wider. She looked toward Tarna and raised an eyebrow, "and who is this lovely woman?"

"Tala Dionisio, may I present Lieutenant Tarna Raden, my operations officer." Kayetan started holding an indicating hand toward Tarna. "Tarna Raden, ambassador Tala Dionisio, to her left is Zillianna Tanton her daughter and to her left is Lieutenant Commander Carita Tanton, Alex's sister."

"It's a pleasure." said the Bajoran woman shaking hands with each in turn and taking her chance to smile.

Kayetan noticed that Tarna seemed immediately at ease with the three women, they'd always had the ability to do that and it had always fascinated him. He supposed it was because he had never been very outgoing, oh he kept a close circle of friends, mostly those who had been able look past his rather plain, bookish, and rather uninteresting outward appearance to find a loyal friend who would stay by your side and try to keep things interesting.

But these women were just the opposite, they made friends easily, and often. They, the two older ones that is, had often poked fun at Alex's rather old-fashioned take on love and romance, they would flirt with most any thing that came near, even a rather shy engineer named Kristoffer that Alex had brung home with him one summer vacation at Starfleet Academy. Alex had nearly died from the perceived embarrassment.

Kayetan though had noted one thing about their 'philandering', as much as mother and daughter had gone on about what they would do to their 'conquests' they had never actually seemed to do what they'd been threatening even after their husbands had died in the Dominion war. It seemed to Kayetan that after Alex's father and grandfather, they had never really wanted anyone else but just liked to tease. Stir the pot of the upper social crust events they often attended as it were.

Tala had been one of the finest Orion ambassadors ever seen, she had overseen the final stages of Orion integration into the Federation. She was also the first Orion woman to openly practice a profession without the screen of pretending her husband was the power but she had still been married, as is the custom. After the death of her first husband she decided to end her career and marry a human man by the name of Alejandro Dionisio, a warp-propulsion specialist. This was a bold move as highly intelligent men were still considered taboo by most Orion women.

Tala had one child with Dionisio, a girl named Zillianna who in later years met and married a human named Connor Tanton. Connor and Zillianna then had two children, Alexander and Cartia, both of whom serve in Starfleet; Cartia as the chief engineer on the _Cobalt _and Alexander as a the tactical officer on the _Andromeda _and then more recently as the CO of the _Ajax_.

Kayetan knew the elder women through both Cartia and Alex; Alex from the academy and their first posting on Starbase 12, and Cartia from the Proxima fleet yards, where they had both been engineers. And had dated briefly. For some parents that might have been a problem, seeing their girl and then breaking up but the Tanton women were not as 'stuffy' as some and Kayetan had stayed friends with all three of them.

Kayetan though suddenly noticed something, looking around he asked, "So where's Alex?"

"He's 'helping' with the festivities." responded Cartia.

"He'll be on stage." added Zillianna.

"Ass part of the sscenery?" interjected Hiss'toor, at which Tarna snorted into her drink, a laugh stifled by the champaign in her mouth. She had only met Alex once, when the _Katana _made a rendevous with the _Ajax _about a six months ago. She had been, impressed, at his size. Alex Tanton was huge but with not an ounce of fat on him, so much so she had even wondered how he sat in his command chair. He was short, barely a meter and a half tall, very thickly muscled with squared features, more like a large block that had some how achieved sentience. All this was topped off by a thick mane of bluish-black hair and layer of greenish-tinged tan skin.

"My brother has a small part, I suppose you could say he's part of the scenery." Was Cartia's reply as she looked over Tarna out of the corner of her eye.

Kayetan shook his head, "Fine, keep it your secret then." he shared a smile with Cartia, her gleaming white teeth shining over her greenish skin in that winning fashion that she had been known for, much nicer than his softer closed lipped one.

It was as they stared at each other, words on her lips unspoken as she sized him up. _ He looks a lot better than the last time I saw him_. Every time their paths crossed after their first meeting it seemed as if he aged past his years somehow, but now he looked right, a little grey in his close cropped brown hair and the slight wrinkles around his face had become full fledged laugh lines. He had aged further yes, but now it was a cultured, well worn look, not a result of hard living and stress. Still, it was a far cry from the naive young bright eyed engineer that summered at her home when he was at the academy.

"Kristoffer," said Tala interrupting Cartia's musing, "A moment please, I need to bend you ear, as you humans say."

Nodding, he spoke to Hiss'toor, "Commander, the party is yours, keep it together while I'm gone." the commander's response was to stick out his tongue, no small gesture, as it was a little over a quarter meter long.

Winding their way through the crowd she led him to a bar covered by an awning and immediately ordered drinks, "Two Tahitian sunrises."

"You'll like it, I promise." she finished handing him one after it had been mixed.

_Fruity_, he thought sipping the drink but aloud he said, "So what has you sounding so serious?"

"You." was her concise reply before going on, "I have learned recently that your name has been moved to the top of a very short list. Kayetan started to speak but she held up a hand and continued, "don't worry, this is not necessarily a bad thing."

Kayetan narrowed a questioning brow, he had never been good at subterfuge and insinuation, in fact, he was down right horrible at it, any attempt at subtly or distraction in the social arena tended to go right over his head.

Tala on the other hand was a successful diplomat with a long record of expertly out-maneuvering her opponents. She could infer a world of meaning from one word and lie with the best of them, both good qualities in a politician. At first it might seem strange that she would like the younger man and originally she had been suspicious of him when her grandson had brung him home from the academy. It was because of a quality she had seen in him after a few weeks, the reason for his seeming naivete; he was a truly honest person. So much so that he had been nearly incapable of seeing the dishonesty in others. Some had just thought he was dense or socially retarded but she declared that it was a breath of fresh air to her. In her line of work one had to sift through thousands of terra-quads of information to arrive at one truth and even then it was to be doubted. But with Kayetan, 'Kick' as he had been called by everyone but her, what you saw was what you got, to use the human phrase.

"I know you're having a meeting with admiral Janeway after the announcement here. I don't know what exactly it is she wants from you, but I do know she needs you and for whatever reason that gives you an edge."

Kayetan thought for a moment, this was dragging up things he'd rather not have drug up. "So what do think I should do?" he said after a moment.

Tala laughed softly, "I'm not trying to tell you what to do. I actually have no advise on that. Only you can know what you want from this. I just want it to be clear to you that you have an opportunity to gain something for yourself here."

_Something for myself?_, he repeated in his mind as more memories surfaced in the dark pool of his mind.

But before he could respond there was loud sound, a bosuns pipe electronically enhanced to sound over the whole crowd. There was a loud call of 'admiral on deck' and every starfleet officer turned to the podium where a group was advancing toward the seats set there. And behind that,_ what in the world? _ It was a line of starfleet officers, five in all and each wearing a different uniform. The first was a human, probably, he couldn't see details at his distance and he was wearing a United Earth Starfleet uniform, the four pips of a captain gleaming on his right breast. Right behind him was a Vulcan in a later starfleet uniform, a kind of pasty-gold shirt with black pants that were flared at the bottom, the same uniform James Kirk wore during his famous five year mission. Next was another human, female this time, who wore one of the so called 'pajama top' uniforms. And there, his width causing a slight disruption in the uniformity of the line was Alex Tanton, just behind the two officers modeling more modern uniforms. The five anachronistic officers came to attention on a raised platform just behind where Admiral Janeway finally made it to the lectern.

Setting a PADD down she spoke, "Thank you all for coming tonight. As some of you may know I'm not one to beat around the bush so I will get right to the point. To day, as most of you know, is the two-hundred and thirty-second anniversary of the signing of the Federations' initial charter." she paused looking around at the crowd, "But that's not why were here. We are here because that day also marked the start of a new age of exploration, an age of knowledge when people like, Archer, April, Kirk, Spock, and many others blazed a path to the unknown." the admiral paused here, scanning the crowd, "It is in their memory that I ask Admiral Picard to give the order to start the nights events." she nodded to the older man sitting near her.

Rising, looking upward and touching his commbadge he said in a crisp accent, "Commanders, you may begin your landing."

There was a moment, many looked upward to see where Picard was looking and then there was a collective gasp. It was a large shape as it came in low, most likely had been skimming the surface till called for. All the starfleet officers almost immediately knew exactly what it was, the engineers a little bit sooner because the warp core of that ship was required study.

"Gathered sentient's, I give you, The Enterprise, as flown by Commander Geordi LaForge." proclaimed Janeway.

The ship did a lap around the gathering and then landed on a platform that had rose from the water nearby, grappling arms rising from the barge to cradle the three hundred year old ship onto its bulk.

But it wasn't over yet, there was a droning sound and a low booming and an even larger shape came towards the crowd. It took the same route the smaller ship did, all though not as elegantly, it was an explorer, its massive bulk not made for planetary maneuvering in any circumstance. Kayetan's eye was sharp enough to spot the antigravs attached to the hull to make the landing possible.

Janeway spoke again, "USS Enterprise-A, as piloted by reserve Admiral Montgomery Scott and Captain Steve Whorl, Starfleet core of engineers."

The ship landed in its own platform that was rigged with struts to hold the saucer section in place in the gravity.

Then there was the loudest rumbling yet and huge form blocked the sun from view and a great silver beast settled into the bay without a platform and began to move slowly toward the jetty where the podium was.

"And, of course, the U.S.S. Enterprise-E, piloted by Captain William Riker." finished Janeway as the massive bulk actually docked with the jetty and a cargo hatch hissed open revealing a cargo bay set up with more tables and party supplies.

"These ships are a testament to the Federation and all it stands for, they represent the quest for knowledge and understanding we have undertaken across the universe. Some of you may note that ships from ths historic line are missing; NCC-1701, NCC-1701-B, 1701-C and D, these four were destroyed in the line of duty, doing as their designers envisioned, a testament to the cost of exploration. Some would say that that cost is too high, that we should move slowly through space and the uncharted. Were April and Kirk moving slowly as they moved through the beta quadrant? When people look back on the past the usually see the 'greatest eras' as the eras we pushed outwards just to see what was there. And so after much deliberation, advise from the Federation council, I and the other Starfleet chiefs of staff have decided to reintroduce the five year mission exploration plan."

At that point one could hear pin drop from a thousand meters and then, one of the starfleet officers stated clapping and another, and one more and then the whole crowd was involved. There had been talk of something like this, it had been floating around the starfleet net for weeks, but no one thought it was this serious. Kayetan was wary of it, he had seen every empire building admiral who wanted to make a name for himself start some half-assed 'exploration' plan; they would call in a few favors, gather some ships and send them off to chart some distant nebula somewhere. These plans usually sounded good but the admiral in charge always seemed to end up micro-managing them into the ground with weekly reports, constant supervision, all these 'starfleet revitalization' plans had ended with the hand picked crews falling apart and having a huge lapse of judgment. But his line of thought trailed off as the applause died down and Janeway continued her speech.

"This will not be the long-range scouts we have been performing for the last few years nor will it be a 'wave the flag' exercise; volunteer crews will head out into the Gamma quadrant for independent mapping and exploration duties lasting no shorter than five years or events force a return, they will be the First Exploration Fleet." she looked over the crowd scanning the faces there and finished, "All in all it is going to be a very interesting next few years and I look forward to sharing it with you."

Kayetan stared at the podium as the admiral left, not really seeing the next speaker come forward, _'may we live in interesting times', I wonder if she knows about that curse. _ He thought as he swirled the remains of his drink.


	2. Chapter 2

Janeway sat at her desk and sipped coffee from her old mug before setting it down with a sigh. _There is too much to do and not enough time to do it in,_ she thought bitterly. It had started several years after their return from the Delta quadrant and now Starfleet wasn't all it seemed.

Actually, for her it started about ten months after they made it home when Voyager was destroyed. Not by enemy weapons, or a spatial phenomenon; seven years in the Delta quadrant and it was a massive spread of quantum torpedoes fired from sister ships that did her in. After returning home the Voyager had been impounded because of the advanced future technology brought by her own future self. Starfleet brass had debated what to do with it, they allowed scans taken to be used by an engineering design team, but the ship herself floundered in a secure dry dock until scans indicated the ship was beginning to phase through time, 'temporal de-cohesion' they were calling it.

When the effects started to spread the decision had been made to destroy the ship totally. Voyager had been towed out beyond Pluto orbit and with the newly promoted Admiral Janeway standing on the bridge of the USS Intrepid had given the order to three of Voyager's sister ships to open fire. The only piece that remained was the dedication plaque that now hung above her office door and a coffee mug that someone, Harry and/or Tom probably, had saved and left on her desk, everything else was atomized.

But it was not the loss of her old ship that furrowed her brow in consternation now, it was the list of names sitting in front of her all of which but one had been crossed off. All the names had characteristics linking them, they were all starfleet captains, all with an excellent academy rating and all had earned reputations for thinking outside the box. She would be meeting with the owner of that last name momentarily and if he to was wrong for what she had in mind, she really didn't know what she would do. The subject of her ire was at present one Captian Kayetan, Krisstofer I. He was senior for his position as captain of a small Saber class scout vessel and reading into his records revealed why; the man couldn't make a senior ranking friend to save his life. At least not one that played by the rules. From the academy on the only officers he got good evaluations from were few and far between and then added a lot of qualifications to their recommendations, mostly along the lines of 'he's a good engineer, but not senior staff material'. And even then if it hadn't been for his superb marks in engineering he'd never have made it past First Lieutenant. But then something had brought him to the eye of the wildcard Admiral Wainwright who'd taken the young Lt. Commander off of the Utopia Planetia Shipyards and added him to his staff as an aide, giving the younger Kayeten very high marks with only the caveat; "-he is very goal oriented, an order is given and this officer will act on it far above the call of duty. However, he is inexperienced, even retarded in the niceties of command etiquette." But despite all this the late admiral went on; "However, I am sure commander Kayetan will make an excellent addition to the senior ranks with some seasoning and a firm example to follow."

However, any potential advancement was interrupted when Seventh Fleet was ambushed in the Tyra system and torn apart by a much larger Dominion force. But that was also where Kayetan's record changed, it seemed that after the Admiral's flagship, the _Hammer_, took a bridge hit Kayetan, now chief engineer, was left in command and ordered the reaming ships to leave the system, technically an illegal order coming from a mere Commander to the other ships' captains. But he didn't stop there, he further ordered all ships who couldn't warp out to remain and cover the escape at all costs, including the _Hammer_. The Hammer then led a guerrilla operation against the Dominion fleet for three days, long enough for two more ships to repair their warp drives and escape with dozens of life pods they'd picked up. Kayeten only then surrendered the remaining ships while rigging them to explode only after they'd been taken back to a Dominion base. It was those actions that earned his Federation Cross as well as several awards. But for him and the hundred-odd survivors of the Seventh Fleet Massacre the war ended in a POW camp that wasn't liberated until the Dominion returned to the Gamma quadrant.

Quite an interesting read she thought touching a panel on her desk and said, "Commander, bring him in please."

Commander Tuvok, now her chief of staff, came in preceded by a human man of medium height and build wearing the red collared uniform of command over which was a close cropped head of hair. A steady gaze that swept over her office gave her the impression that he could give a precise inventory of everything in her office without looking around again. He came to attention in front of her desk and waited until she waived a hand and offered a seat.

"Thank you ma'am." he said crisply as he sat.

Impeccable. Not a motion was over-done or wasted. He didn't even look down when he sat. "Thank you commander, that is all." she said and Tuvok left the room to them.

"Alright Captain, I'm going to cut the bull. I have your complete record here and read every bit of it. You see, I was completely serious with what I said earlier, we are restarting the five year mission plan, just as it was, only the technology and procedures have changed. What are your thoughts on that Captain? And speak freely, I want your honest opinion."

Taking a breath to compose his thoughts he responded, "It won't work." he said bluntly.

Janeway did have some idea about Kayetan's mannerisms from his record, his old CO's reports indicated such, but she was still rather taken aback at that simple declaration. "Care to elaborate on that statement?" she said.

"Of course admiral. First, assuming you truly mean to let captains go on five year missions unsupervised, you still have other factors; ships to start with, even here almost sixteen years after the complete end of the dominion war we are still in heavy rebuilding, too many planets were far too devastated and most of Starfleet is till tied up in missions helping member worlds. And then the ships left are tied up in every project that any admiral, councilmen or planetary governor can think up thanks to the war rebuilding special measure."

Janeway nodded with that last statement, the war rebuild special measure was supposed to be temporary measure that was enacted by the Federation council to aid member worlds in their recovery by allowing them to use starfleet resources. In effect though, it had opened the door to every planetary leader who wanted to keep a few starships around as their personal go-fers. At first it had been fine, after the war a huge number of personal who had signed up during the war had decided to stay in active service and with all the light hulls in production near the end it meant they actually had the ships to spare. But now, as the rebuild projects started to wind down more and more ships were spending time as errand runners for every back-water planet that had a mission.

And there was another problem, the ships themselves. They had been built during a war with no end in sight, small ships built with quick build time rather than durability in mind and they were beginning to show their wear. Some senior officers wanted to start refurbishing them but there were too many and their basic frames were just too old to handle any real upgrades. This all meant that starfleet was caught in a crossfire, on one hand they had a huge fleet so couldn't get the resources to build more of the newer ships but she couldn't decommission the old ones until she had replacements in the docks, at least she couldn't if she wanted to maintain the work load the council demanded. In the past her predecessors would just tell the federation president what they needed but lately the processes in the council had taken a change for the red taped and even the president had his hands tied.

_ It's amazing, we withstood the Dominion only to tear ourselves apart with our own legal processes. The Founders should have tried sending lawyers, not troops_, she thought wryly. But she shook off that train of thought and finished listening to Kayetan speak.

"The second is us, starfleet officers, this has the potential to be a historic turning point for starfleet and every captain and admiral who wants to make a name for himself is going to want in on the planing phase and each will want to add his own touch to the mission statement until there's just a glob of unidentifiable orders that no one can follow in a Euclidean universe." Taking a deep breath he finished, "And the last is related, those same admirals who want 'in' will demand constant status reports and critique every mission report that comes in. The explorer captains will be afraid to act, to take the initiative that is needed out in the unknown. If you actually mange to assemble a fleet and get it to the gamma quadrant, I give it a year at the most before most of the crews try to opt out or something happens to call them all home."

_Well, I see why everyone thinks he's abrasive,_ but Janeway let the silence continue for a moment after he finished then returned, "Well captain, you stated several of the more powerful arguments against the five year plan. The arguments almost everyone on my staff tender-footed around with for months. Your abruptness was quite rude coming from someone I've never met." she smiled here, noting that Kayetan's face didn't even twitch with that pronouncement, _so he's the real thing_ she thought, "I rather like it." she finished. "Half my staff is too enamored with my career and the other half is afraid to upset the 'old lady'. In truth the only one I seem to be able to count on is my Vulcan aid, Tuvok." she paused taking a breath, "And so in the same sprit I'll be up-front with you, you were not my first choice. Nor even my second, no, you were last on my list. Not because I don't know you, I knew none of the captains on my list, I put you on the bottom because you're still listed as an engineer and engineers aren't usually the type of person I'm looking for." She stopped again, a sudden question occurring to her, "Out of curiosity captain, why did you change to a command track?"

Kayetan looked puzzled for a moment and she felt she could almost see a mental shrug as he started, "It was admiral Wainwright, he submitted my name to the advanced tactical command school, he said it would be foolish to deny starfleet access to my full potential." he paused a moment, "His words, not mine." he added.

_Hmm. _ She herself had never met the admiral, the CO of seventh fleet had earned a bulldog reputation during the opening months of the Dominion war, that is up until seventh fleet was decimated outside the Tyra system but the admiral was killed in action, seventh fleet lost ninety-eight ships and Kayetan ended up in a Dominion POW camp awarded the Federation Cross and the Starfleet Medal of Honor for his actions. It had been that award that brought Janeway's eye to Kayetan in the first place.

_ The first battle of Tyra seems to be a turning point for him_. But aloud she said, "Well, getting back on track what you said is true, all of it. Which is why I've taken measures to avoid those scenarios. First there will be only one admiral overseeing the First Exploration Fleet, Picard, I trust you have heard of him?" after getting an affirmative response she continued, "And he will be stationed on Orbit One, right here in Earth orbit. Second, while we will be laying subspace transmitters and relays so we can keep in touch I have made the First Exploratory its own fleet, only Picard will be authorized to give orders to his captains, who by the way, have been given very specific orders; they are to cruise an area of space between Dominion occupied territory and the border of the alpha quadrant. These orders are given directly from my office and cannot be countered by any other than my office. But that's not why you're here. You see there will be lot of science vessels out there, barely armed and vulnerable, cut off from most aid and direction. And as much as I would like to just throw them out there I have to appease the by-the-book officers and according to 'the book' there must be a flag officer or at least a senior officer in charge so there is a clear chain of command. It's a stupid bit of rarely used procedure but the junior admirals have been grousing about it to the Federation council so I have to have someone 'in charge' out there." she stopped again here, looking at Kayetan who seemed interested and was staring intently at her.

"So what I want to do with you is simple, you will be starfleet command in the Gamma quadrant. You will have the authority to step in and assist the explorer captains if they need, their safety net if you will. This will mean added responsibilities for you and your crew, so you will get your pick of new ships and officers, whatever you think you need. The hard part will be that you need to be in place before the fleet gets there, hopefully in nine months which would give you six to have a ship and crew ready. Also, in order to void any seniority issues you will receive a promotion to Fleet Captain."

The room was silent for few seconds as kayetan thought, "So, in essence I would act as back up for any problems the fleet might encounter and resolve any internal differences the personnel might have. I would be in effect an internal affairs department and a tactical response unit."

"Yes. That would sum up your duties perfectly."

"What if I said I like my scout ship and my current duties?"

"This is not an order captain. It is a, request. And only that. If you wish to remain captain of a ship far below your grade I will not begrudge that. And you could go back to your anti-pirate patrols."

"Well admiral," he said standing suddenly, "I will have to think on your offer, this is rather sudden for me. May I sleep on it?"

She nodded, "Of course. But I need your answer by tomorrow, I don't have time to waste if you decline."

"Then by your leave." Kayetan came to brief attention before moving smartly out of her office.

After he had gone she called out, "So, what do you think Tuvok?"

"An intriguing individual." intoned the vulcan as he stepped from the corner where he had been listening. "Did you see he was an exchange student with the Vulcan science academy?"

"Yes. I saw that. Top marks from there if I recall."

"Yes. But it is not his scholastic record I am intrigued with. According to a instructor I spoke with, after his incarceration in the POW camp he returned to Vulcan and learned a number of meditation techniques, techniques that it takes Vulcan children years to learn. One of the masters I spoke with was almost, impressed, with his achievements while he stayed with him. He said that if Kayetan had wished it he would have recommended that he start the Kolinar ritual. A most unique offer." He added, "For an off-worlder at least."

Kathryn thought on that for a moment, _interesting, very interesting_.


	3. Chapter 3

Janeway moved through the late night fog that had rolled in just after the sun set. Many off worlders who came to earth were surprised at the barely controlled weather on the Federation's capital planet but the planetary governing body didn't like to interfere with the natural cycles more then they had to. But it meant that the uniform 'trench-coat' she liked to wear was quite suitable and kept her warm enough.

She moved slowly through the fog, she was still unfamiliar with this side of old San Francisco, Alameda, she believed it was called. Spotting her destination, the only thing separating it from all the other plain buildings here by the wharf was a sign, _The Core_, which was lit in bright blue and had a stylized warp core as the background.

_Sounds like the place an engineer would want to meet, _she thought slightlytestily, _although it doesn't look it._

Stepping through the old fashioned wooden door, complete with brass door knob, she immediately saw how it got its name, for there, behind the large horseshoe shaped bar, was a warp core. From one of the old J class cargo haulers, if she didn't miss her guess. Slipping off her knee length uniform coat she off she draped it over her arm and slid up to the bar, eyeing the name plate hammered onto the dilithium matrix chamber; ECS Fargo, Luna Ship Yards, Earth, commissioned this day, November 12, 2105.

"Hello admiral." broke in a soft voice from behind her.

Turning, Janeway saw a short woman in the uniform of a starfleet engineering commander. She had soft blue eyes and greenish skin under a head of long black hair.

"Interesting place commander. Is it new?"

Cartia smiled at that, "No, admiral. _The Core_ has been around as long as there's been a Starfleet core of engineers."

"Why haven't I head of it?"

Smiling even wider she responded, "Well, you're not an engineer are you?." Sobering suddenly she finished walking toward the end of the warp core, near the wall, "When Kick, Kristoffer that is, first told me about your offer, I must admit, I was angry."

Janeway's eyes widened at that, "How so?"

Stopping near where the plasma conduits normally would have come out the back of the warp core Cartia responded softly, "Kick called me right after your meeting with him. He might not see the trouble you're getting him involved in, but I see it." Raising a wooden bar panel on its hinges she stepped into the serving area and turned toward Janeway. "I was mad, at first because I thought he was being set up, just like what happened with the _Argo_. But then you called and asked about him, asked _me _about him and then I knew, and was no longer angry." Reaching under the bar Cartia pulled out a bottle of a greenish liquid.

"Orion brandy Admiral?" she said pouring some into a tumbler.

The Admiral eyed the drink, she didn't normally indulge, but she decided it wasn't a bad idea after a long day. She placed her coat on the counter and after the other woman had filled her glass they drank.

"Why did that change your mind commander?' Janeway quizzed after setting the throat scorching liquid down.

Raising an eyebrow the Orion woman replied, "Why would you care to know more about him if you were just setting him up? Oh there are other reasons to know, but you, personally, the commander in chief of starfleet operations, calling a mere Commander of engineers to talk about the rather shy captain of a small scout ship? No." Cartia looked the admiral in the eye now, smiling thinly, "Unlikely that you would follow up on this unless something was biting at you. I can read a news biography as well as the next person, and you, admiral, are not the type to grouse about 'expendable parts'." She smiled wider, "Actually, I know exactly what happened. Somehow in the few minutes you spent with Kick you started to like him." she paused a moment, "Well, maybe not like him, but he seemed 'interesting'."

Cartia started to pour another drink but Janeway put a hand over the top of her glass, stopping the other woman from pouring. "Commander,-" she started but was cut off.

"The first rule of _The Core_ is no rank, call me Cartia."

Nodding Janeway shot back, "Alright, Cartia. If we are to be informal than call me Kathryn." she said in an infrequent show of generosity. "So, where is the proprietor of this establishment?"

"The owner had some business in Dublen," something about getting some more 'proper' brandy. He asked me to watch the place for him." putting the stopper back in the bottle of brandy she replaced it under the counter and turned toward the warp core reaching under a curved panel that shielded the main housing and circuitry.

"Now, Kathryn, I'll show you why I wanted to meet here rather then some where more formal." pressing a hidden catch she lifted the whole panel away.

_ That has to weigh at least thirty-five kilos_ , thought the admiral.

But Cartia started before her, "In order to tell you about Kick I need to tell you about his past."

Setting the heavy panel aside Cartia twisted the handle on a meter long inspection hatch letting it open, falling downwards on gimbal hinges.

Inside there were scratch marks carved into the diatainum panel. Pointing at one Cartia went on, "Can you read that one ma'am? The light isn't quite right. cocking her head she said raising her voice, "Computer, raise lights by thirty percent."

Eyes adjusting quickly to the brighter illumination Janeway saw that the 'scratches' weren't just that. They were signatures. And the one she was pointing to started with a large 'Z' and then a 'e'- by the stars

"Is that, is it real?" she stammered out.

"Yes ma'am. That is the signature of Zefram Cochrane." moving her hand a few dozen centimeters to the left she stopped over another signature, this one had a simple style, rather plain and blocky, but was clearly spelled,_ Kristoffer Ingram Kayetan_. "This warp core was originally installed in the cargo ship _Fargo_, one of the last 'J' type cargo haulers built. And the last ship that Cochrane personally oversaw the construction of. After the ship was mothballed its core passed through various hands until it was found powering an old sensor station in Neptune orbit, nobody knew how it had got there. The original owner of this tavern bought it and placed it here, fully operational, as a decoration. Every year the engineering student at the top of the class is allowed to perform the basic maintenance on it, realign the injectors and what not. If a student is the top engineer for all three of his main academy years he is allowed to carve his name on this inspection port, right with Cochrane's."

She paused here to see that she still held the admiral's attention before going on. "This is where the Kayetan I know starts. The first time I saw him, thin and lanky with a head of unkempt hair, I wondered what had gotten into my brother bringing him to our house for the summer break at the academy. You see, I didn't like him at first, I was young, jealous at his natural engineering ability and the way my whole family seemed to take an instant liking to him. And so in my teenaged way I tried to get him angry, to get him 'riled up' and show everyone that I was better then him. But the more things I did to him the less he seemed to care; nothing I did got under his skin. I thought at first he was baiting me, trying to draw me out or something by staying calm. But it wasn't that."

Taking a breath she finished. "It was something my mother said about him one day, that it was pleasant to meet someone with his honesty. And then it hit me, he_ didn't know_ he should be angry at me. He didn't know I was jealous, he didn't know the daggers I was glaring at him when his back was turned. He had no plan to compete with me. You see, Kick is one of the best warp engineers I've known, one of the most organized, logical, intelligent people I've known. You give him a warp flux problem, a subspace fractal algorithm; in any situation with known quantities he'll figure it out, or find the one who can, but if you put him in a social situation with any sort of hidden meaning or insinuation he can't deal with it. He just can not understand the layers of lies, half truths, insinuation, two-faced actions, and any number of the things that normally occur whenever more than one sentient being gathers in one place."

Cartia took a sip of her drink before going on, "And that is why he's gotten in trouble so many times. Nothing that really shows on his record, but he's really pissed some people off, which is why he's been happy with his small ship running around chasing pirates on the borders. There he's with a crew who know and like him and he can face every problem on his terms, one step at a time, just the way he likes."

As the engineer sitting across from her trailed off, a question from earlier came back to her, "Does this attitude have something to do with the first battle of Tyra?"

"Yes and no. Kick has always been lost in his own head or whatever problem he's working on at the time. He was always like that. When he first met admiral Wainwright it was right after one those incidents of trouble I spoke of, someone took something from him out of spite and he was still reeling from it when somehow the admiral saw through his depression and saw potential. With some convincing Kick joined the admiral's staff as an aid. Well as you may know admiral Wainwright believed in leading from the front lines and so he commanded his own flagship, the Hammer, and Kick's 'aid' job quickly turned into being head of engineering. I think that was the first time he really formed extended friendships. Before, Kick had just a few very close friends, but on the Hammer he was well-liked and accepted. Then there was Tyra and Kick had to hold a Dominion fleet off so the remainder of seventh fleet could escape. He had opened up to the crew of the Hammer, really opened up for the first time, and all but sixty of the original crew of five-hundred were killed." Cartia thought for a moment ,"And did you know quite a few of survivors of camp fourteen are still with him Lieutenant Coda and Commander Lallal included. I understand those three were inseparable during their incarnation. And that, admiral, is the real story. One that I don't have. He doesn't talk about the camp. Not with anyone. Not even the councilors he had to see after the camp was liberated. I was able to find out that at some point he did something there that scared some of the other prisoners, something even Coda and Lallal will avoid talking about. But whatever it was; there were one-hundred and thirty prisoners when camp fourteen was founded, under a hundred survived it and fifty of those are in his current crew, some bond has kept them together all this time"

Janeway mulled over what Cartia was saying, it was nothing she hadn't read in Kayetan's file, but Cartia put it all together nicely. But there was one thing she still needed to ask, "Do you think Kayetan can handle what I've offered?"

"Well, I don't know the details of whatever you have him doing but I can tell you this, Kick will always do the right thing, no matter what. He will find the best solution, and he will protect that which he loves and woe to anyone or anything that interferes with anything he protects. Don't get me wrong, he's not a loose cannon, it takes a lot for him to declare war but once he does he will do _anything _and he has the brains and will-power to back that up. A scary thing for anyone on the wrong side."

"Well commander, lets hope he stays on our side then."


	4. Chapter 4

Kayetan hadn't slept. He just laid on his bunk and thought on his current situation. Getting nowhere even after he talked to Cartia he had started a meditation technique to focus his thoughts. But the only one that kept repeating was your 'new ship, new crew'. _I like my ship and crew. _ Was the only response he could think of. And he sat there until finally his mind wandered back to the party and he thought about what kind of specs those barges needed to land those ships, then he thought of Cartia again, and wondered how her mother was doing and-'_Only you can know what you want from this. I just want it to be clear to you that you have an opportunity to regain some of what you lost.'-_ it was like a lightning bolt as he remembered what Tala had said and then what Janeway had said_- 'your_ _pick of new ships and officers, whatever you think you need'_ .

He shot out of bead like a Thasken Razor boar and went to his wall panel pulling up a set of schematics from his personal files. _I do have a chance here don't I? _More slowly and deliberately he pressed a button near his bed and spoke, "Computer, activate EMH, my location."

A hologram of a youngish looking human woman with a slight gymnast's frame and fiery red hair appeared a few meters from his position. She looked around and narrowed her gaze as she caught eye of the captain, "So, midnight house call? I'm not that kind of hologram." she said coyly.

Kayetan stepped back, putting him off balance because he was still next to his bed and it blocked his path, "No, I, that's, you're, we don't . . ." He trailed off has he felt his face flush and bumped into the bed behind him.

"Well, it's nice to know that after all these years I can still make you blush when I want." she laughed merrily.

"Miranda, please, seriousness for a moment."

"Fine." she stated has she sat in a chair near the end of the captains bunk. "Does this have something to do with your visit to San Francisco?"

"Yes. Access the files I have on my work station."

Miranda sighed, she ran through a few dozen scenarios in her cognitive cortex attempting some insight into what the captain was thinking and from past example she deduced that the captain was making some important decision; and from her presence in the matter it had personal implications for the captain. In all matters relating to duty the captain's decision process was fast, taking an average of 4.758 seconds to make up his mind, usually without any outside help. On the other hand, personal choices, especially those that would indirectly effect others took the captain an average of 3.2 standard days. And he usually needed help with them. Miranda accessed the message net log and, yes there it was, he had called Cartia, one of the ones he liked to get an 'unbiased' view from. But here the captain broke form, Miranda was his friend, they shared a love of strategy games and music, usually he went to Orruorak or Lallal for direct personal advice, so what was she . . . her thought processes stopped, or rather she devoted a full three-quarters of her processing powers to the situation. While she had considered the captain's mood she had accessed his work station and, it was the _**Storm**_.

She looked at him staring; Miranda was an advanced holographic matrix comprised of forty-two hundred Tera-quads of information in a bilateral positronic core. To one who knew their computers that meant she was a combination of two fields, her hardware was based off the work of Dr. Noonian Soong the creator of the late Commander Data. But beyond the basic idea she differed with that famous officer because none of the scientists working on Soong's notes and ideas had been able to make a stable positronic core capable of self-growth. One team who had once worked with Lewis Zimmerman, the creator of the EMH and father of modern holography, theorized that by using a positronic matrix to generate a holographic field, they would be able to simulate Soong's work and then be able to see how a properly constructed positron matrix formed. It was hoped that this would allow them to discover the secret of positron matrices that had died with Soong. But what they got was the most adaptive, expansive program ever designed, from the time they activated the first one to the time it grew to large for its memory and 'died' from a recursive error was measured in nanoseconds. They had told it to learn and it had, _everything_ in less then a second, the entire federation database, something it took days to load into a starships main computer core even if you had the right equipment.

For some time now they had the knowledge to create sentient holograms, but they needed constant maintenance, a holographic matrix was a very complicated algorithm and when there was any programing conflict errors started to form. Sometimes they could be fixed, as in the well known example of Voyagers EMH, but any good programing expert would tell you that he was a very unique case and just as much luck as skill went in to saving him. Those like her though were allowed to 'grow' naturally, overcoming most programming conflicts before they could cascade into a single massive failure.

Miranda herself had come into being thirteen years beforehand, she was one of six to go online within a year. She spent six months downloading information and 'growing' into a fully formed personality matrix. Unlike most holograms generated for entertainment her form and personality were the result of 'growing up', albeit in a highly accelerated time frame, rather than being preprogramed. She and two others had been volunteered for a program called _Intelligent Computer Interface_, this group was experimenting with using intelligent holograms to maintain the onboard computers of starships. In theory this method would increase reaction speeds, computer lifetimes, and allow a ships computer to 'predict' a crews needs. It was at this point that an engineer researching technologies for a new ship class came across the program and decided it was something that would be perfect for his needs.

For more than a year Miranda worked with the crew designing the _Storm _class, she helped design the computer core itself and made ready to integrate herself with its systems, as her positronic matrix would provide the 'personality', rather than the standard one used in most starfleet ships. That was not all, her core processor, the actual hardware itself would be installed in the ship where she would provide maintenance and act as a 'firewall' for the main computer core. This was to be the first time a computer designed by a computer would then be managed by that computer. Then the _Storm _project was cancelled. It was decided that the ship was far too warlike, unneeded, and too resource intensive to justify its continuation. The _Storm _and most of the systems developed for her use, including the Intelligent Computer Interface were classified and canceled.

Miranda herself was set to be deactivated but Kayetan had used his engineering contacts to instead have her installed as a maintenance computer in a secure facility. He had in effect saved her life but it had been at great personal cost to him, particularly his career. It didn't end there though, half a year later after Kayetan had taken leave he had requested ship command, as some form of back-handed slap they had given him the _Katana_, normally a lieutenant commanders slot, as a full captain he should have gotten a much bigger and newer ship. Kick though was happy, the _Katana _had been the last ship he had overseen the construction of before the _Storm _had been canceled. Then Kayetan had somehow retrieved her matrix core from exile and installed it in the _Katana _as an EMH.

It was kind of ironic actually, Kayetan had been one the silent proponents behind the Emergent Lifeform Emancipation Act, a law that would protect artificial, 'generated' life, he had helped organize like-minded engineers to gather and write an article entitled simply: _Emerging intelligent life, studies in case._ The article had circulated among the engineers of the fleet for months gathering momentum and favor until at a yearly engineering symposium held on earth every engineer refused to submit their work in protest, instead signing their name to the article. It was this incident and resulting debates that forced the federation council to make a decision one way or the other, something they had been avoiding due to the strong feelings on either side.

The result was the Emergent Lifeform Emancipation Act, which simply said that life created through artificial means, including, Positronic, Holographic, and any Techno-organic, was to be considered a sentient life form with all the rights, privileges, and responsibilities thereof. This had led to the placing of inhibitors on all holodecks, no self-learning programs with over twelve tera-quads of programing would be allowed. If that had been the end of the story it might have ben fine, but Miranda had been put online several years before the act and at the time starfleet preferred to just deactivate unused holograms rather than add fuel to the growing holographic rights movement. The other part of that was when Kayetan had gotten his command he had gotten Miranda out from her exile, but it had been through a very shady 'mix-up' in orders. At the time Miranda had been ecstatic at the thought at finally going into ship board duty, it was later that she realized what the captain had done to get her out of hock. It was a classic rock and hard place, on one hand he had broken the law by basically stealing starfleet hardware, then he did it again to let her join his crew without authorization. Then the act was ratified and now if it was revealed what he had done, if she was recognized under the act, everything he had done would come out and he had lost too much already, she hadn't wanted to cause him more grief and what was done was done.

And that brought her back to the current problem. She wasn't just another hologram she was a holographic interface. In order for her to move from one ship to the other they would need some very specialized equipment, the type of equipment that would raise some flags in the oversight committee that enforced the Emancipation Act. Kayetan had gotten away with it the first time under special circumstances, she had been kept in Proxima orbit and moving her to a ship under refit there hadn't been a noticeable task with all the construction. And she had covered his tracks in the computer databases herself when he had come for her. She had gone willingly, but if her true nature was ever revealed, one wrong word in the wrong place and he could get into a lot of trouble. The committee had already proved that it was willing to hand out some of the hardest sentences in the Federation for those found guilty of, what was for all intents and purposes, slavery. She pulled up part of her sub matrix and looked in the Federation legal database: forty-seven. They could charge him with forty-seven crimes. If they wanted to push it. Yes some of them would be legal over-extensions but by the time he was cleared he would be in disgrace. And, she calculated that, as fractured as the officer core was at present, some party would take advantage of the situation for their benefit.

_But I've not seen him so energetic in a long time_. Well, whether or not he knew it, she had a debt to him, he had saved her life, that she was sure of, she _would _have been deactivated if not for him. If he had found a hope to get his dream she would back him up all the way. But now, she was bonded with the Katana's computers and if he attempted to remove her, there would be questions, more questions and lots of jail time.

"Anyway Miranda," Kayetan was going happily on in true form, "so, I was thinking, that this is an opportunity, Janeway's basically said she would give open-ended orders for equipment and personal, I'd be able to pull the _Storm _out of storage, transfer everyone to her. It would be great, a bigger ship, new space to explore . . ."

Mirdanda assigned fifteen percent of her cognitive abilities to listening to the captain, the rest she used to run scenarios and calculate the odds of a favorable scenario. _ Yup, in eighty percent of cases we'll need some outside help_ _for a favorable outcome, we'll need someone on the council and who would be willing to listen to the whole story_. She listened to the captain go on about the ship and what would be needed to be done and went through her files of oversight committee members. Professor Roch, Reginald Moore, Dr Hans Grubber-she stopped there; doctor. In only a few milliseconds she accessed a file and added a person to the scenarios running through her mind. _Yes, with his help, we achieve a ninety-three percent success rate. _ Those were as good as they got for a machine.

The fifteen percent of her mind that was listening to the captain noted that he had paused for two point six seconds, he was staring at her. She moved another sixty percent of her functions to focus on him.

"Sir?" she said.

"Are you OK?" he asked.

And there it was again. She had never changed her features, nodded at all the right places, she checked her visual memory just to be sure and as always it was. No one else had ever noticed, they couldn't really, when she was distracted but the captain did. She had never been able to classify it. She smiled. She had never been able figure it out and she doubted she would tonight. But there was a saying that starfleet engineers had a magic touch, especially when it came to the impossible. She filed it yet again under that one percent 'human element' factor that was part of all her calculations and asked the captain to go on.

"Just a second, I minus well start the ball rolling before I get started again." He hit a comm button, calling the bridge.

"Sir?" was the response from Nancy, the night bridge officer

"Put me through to the head of starfleet operations, Janeway's office."

"Sir, its four a.m. local."

"I know. Just put it through lieutenant."

Kayetan stood there tapping the wall panel staring at the schematics displayed there until Janeway appeared on screen. Miranda slid back put of the pickup of the screen and waited.

"Admiral, I know its early, but do you think I can have those orders in writing?" Janeway smiled, "I guess this means you're on board?"

Smiling back he said, "Yes, yes it does. Can you send those orders?"

"In the morning, farther into the morning Captain, after my coffee. You'll get them."

"Thank you ma'am. Sorry to disturb you. Good day." He finished, ending the call.

Miranda smiled again, _there are constants in the universe and Kristoffer Ingram Kayetan's habit for bulling forward was one of them, _thought part of her complex mind as he continued on with his plans as if he called the head of starfleet operations every night.


	5. Chapter 5

Kayetan looked at his crew, all eighty-two of them gathered in the Katana's main cargo bay. It was times like these he was glad for a small crew. Stepping up onto a crate he waved at the crowd getting their attention, not really succeeding until Orruorak called out, 'captain on deck!' that they really started to pay attention. More from not hearing that phrase very often than any actual hard discipline.

"Well," Kayetan started, "I see we're in fine military form. I'd say 'at ease' but if you were any more at ease you'd still be in bed." to which he got a chorus of snickering. "Anyway, unless the grapevine has died a sudden and unlikely death, you all know I had a meeting with the starfleet head of operations yesterday. And admiral Janeway gave me an offer that I couldn't refuse. I know it is rather sudden but she didn't give me enough time to consult many people, I had to give an answer early this morning." Looking around at his crew, his friends he could see confusion. "You all know me, I won't try to justify my decision, or explain myself; we've been together for too long for that to work anyway. So I'll just read my new orders to you and offer you all a similar choice." Kayetan pulled out a PADD and began reading, his clear precise voice echoing through the bay, "To, Captain Kristoffer Ingram Kayetan, CO USS Katana, from the office of the director of starfleet operations; you are hereby requested and required to relinquish command of USS Katana, NCC-76034, to the first available caretaker crew and remove yourself and any staff you may require to Starbase 001 in earth orbit. There you will await further orders. Failure to comply with this order may result in court marshal or censure." Kayetan paused here and scrolled down on his PADD continuing, "To, Captain Kristoffer Ingram Kayetan, unattached duty, earth orbit; you are hereby promoted to the rank of Fleet Captain and are to uphold the responsibilities and requirements your station requires. Failure to comply with this order may result in court marshal or censure." he touched the PADD again and went on, "To, Fleet Captain Kristoffer Ingram Kayetan, unattached duty, earth orbit; you are hereby given authorization to inspect or requisition any facility or ship that you or your staff deem necessary until which time you take command of your next duty station. This order signed this day, Admiral Kathryn Janeway." he paused again, noting that everyone seemed interested, "To, Fleet Captain Kristoffer Ingram Kayetan, unattached duty, earth orbit; you are hereby authorized to transfer any Starfleet personal you or your staff deem necessary to your duties and responsibilities as long as the procurement of such personal does not directly threaten or impair the safety of starfleet personal or equipment. This order signed this day, Admiral Kathryn Janeway."

There was a second of silence in the bay as the ramifications of those orders sunk into the crew. Then Kayetan finished, "This is quite a sudden change and I didn't make my decision lightly and, I hope you will all come with me. My orders let me write my own ticket and I will transfer any of you who wish to come onto my 'staff' until we pick-up our ship. However, you should all know that our duties will involve the new First Fleet and we will be on extended patrol in the Gamma quadrant so I will not, can not, order any of you to come-you must decide for yourself. The only thing is that I need a decision within the day."

As Kayetan trailed off the bay came alive as the crew started to mummer and discuss until Orrourak shouted for quiet and turned to the captain.

"Sir. I must let you know, that, there was a breach in protocol. And your orders were, known to us, before your announcement." Orrourak looked over the crew and the back at the captain, "We have already discussed the, implications, and have divided according to our wish to remain here or go with you."

It was then that Kayetan saw Lieutenant Tarna and Chief Redgruve standing with a few of the junior enlisted personnel, a few feet away.

"Sir," she started, looking at the other personal near her, "we, we have decided not to join the five year missions and will remain here. And-" she trailed off. While she had not been with the captain as long as Lallal or Orrourak she felt the weight of leaving. When she thought on it, she hadn't really been part of any of the adventures described to her by the senior officers. But there was the root of it, she had family, lots of them scattered around half the quadrant and while she enjoyed listening to their tales and hunting pirates on the edges of Federation space, she couldn't just leave and be out of direct contact with her family. Unlike those three, her life was not all starfleet, yes she enjoyed it, but she used her leave as it came. Commander Coda once stated he had ten months accumulated, the captain probably had far more.

Kayetan looked for a moment, distant, unsure, then he smiled, "I understand Lieutenant, I don't know what to say, I will miss you-all of you." He finished speaking as he swept his gaze around the whole group she was with. _Fourteen, fourteen will be left behind. _There was a small part of Kayetan's mind that reeled from this, losing more of his friends, no, family,but this small portion was overshadowed by the part that was happy a new set problems was about to start and if it was one thing he liked, it was a nice direct challenge.

"It's fine sir, I wouldn't know what to do if you did say something." and she started to turn back towards the bay, smiling slightly before Kayetan went on addressing the crew.

His leaving crew members hanging on his mind Kayetan continued, "We have twelve weeks to pick up our ship, refit it, man it, and get to the Gamma quadrant. So while I have you all here, first, promotions all around from this pont on consider every one here one rank higher that you were before, I'm just waiting for the paperwork to be pushed through;" then, "Millar, Tobias, Rezgat, start setting the Katana for refit, pull all the personnel lockers and what not, you know the drill. Orrourak, take the security department to the Mars ship yards and get us some space, a full refit dock and the equipment to go with it." Kayetan barely paused for the 'aye, sir' from Orrouak before going on, "Chief Talos, choose ten people and start collecting inventory for a heavy dreadnaught weight ship, I want scanners, shields, every new upgrade you can get your hands on then take it all to Orrouak at Mars." Kayetan smiled here, "The rest of us will go pick up our new ship."

It was there that he paused long enough for someone to speak, Hiss'toor actually, "You speak of a sship again, and what sship would that be sir?"

Smiling all the wider, something his crew was accustomed to seeing, he responded, "You'll see commander. You'll see."

The ship was huge. And black. Well, it looked black with the protective coverings in place. Combined with its arrowhead shaped superstructure they gave it a dark menacing look. On the two hour flight to Proxima Centauri the captain had filled him in on the USS Storm, the ship they were 'retrieving'. It had gone smoothly actually, the twenty plus crew from the Katana had barely raised an eye at the shuttle launch bay as it was a common flight for starfleet personnel to take. Then the disembarkation went fine, even when they 'borrowed' a shuttle from the Proxima yards no one said anything, it was all 'down hill' as the humans say, that is, until now, where a middle aged Tellarite commander stood behind a desk pointing a meaty finger at the captain.

"Look, you cant just stroll in here and take whatever you want! I don't care who signed what orders, only the yard commander himself can release anything on the restricted listings!"

"You kept us waiting four hours and found out the dock commander is on leave and now two more hours and you haven't found his Xo, we don't have the time to waste sitting around while you find your superiors."

"Well that's the way it's going to be. Unless you suddenly found your requisition orders and security pass."

"That's what these are for." said Kayetan sliding the data rod with his orders closer to the officious man. "If you want, I can call someone and verify them for you." he finished.


	6. Chapter 6

Lieutenant Commander Raishida Sorne was having a bad year. First she gets dumped on the Utopia Planetia shipyards in Mars orbit, yes it was a far cry from her home of Trillus Prime, but still she was not visiting exotic places like the starfleet recruiter had said she would. And now she had some overgrown fur-ball running roughshod over her carefully laid construction que. Yes she was only in charge of part of the shipyards but it was the part that had the main heavy docks, the huge lattice works, the so-called 'dry-docks' (human phrases didn't make sense to her, everything was 'dry' in space) were in huge demand with captains of lager ships because they were the only thing big enough to handle them. Never mind the advanced fabrication plants they came with and the industrial grade transporters. They made any ship repair faster so they were always full, so when one ship bumped another off the list, every captain from here to Alpha Centauri would be screaming bloody hell and wanting to know why they had been pushed back on the schedule. And now for the last ten hours barges and transport shuttles had been arriving bound for repair dock twelve loaded down with all sorts of supplies, deflector dish upgrades, transporters, the latest shield generators; someone was planning a major upgrade and was planning to use _her_ dock to do it in, all without telling her.

So that was why she was stalking quickly toward this 'commander Orrourak' that had waived some orders around, intimidated her subordinates and caused her delicate schedule to become a nightmare. Turning an intersection in the corridor she launched herself into the observation bay on dock twelve.

"Alright, whichever one of you is commander Orrourak, listen up; I don't care under who's authority you're here this is_ my_ observation room on _my_ dock in _my_ shipyard and you will tell me what you're doing and cease whatever it is until I can verify those orders or I will clap you in iron so fast your brain will think your body just jumped to warp."

Two things happened to Raishidda right then, first she took a breath, then her brain caught up with her eyes and she really saw for the first time what, or who, she had just dressed down. It was more than two meters tall and instead of a normal uniform, understandable because they probably didn't have uniforms big enough for that, bear thing. The only indication she had that it was sentient was that it had a combadge on the left strap of its harness and rank pips just like hers on its right strap along with a standard type two phaser. To her credit her first thought after the initial mind trip was, _why does something that, __**huge**__ need a phaser?_ Staring at it, he, (she?) Raishidda answered her own question as she noticed the mustard yellow shoulder pauldrons mounted on the harness, _oh, he's in security. _But even after the long silence she refused to be intimidated by the, admittedly, imposing bulk in front of her

Looking up at the mountain in front of her she said, "Well?"

"Great One once said, 'hot head starts many fires'." rumbled back the mountain, "It was not our intention to challenge your authority in this, your domain."

Raishidda was taken aback, this was a very well spoken mountain.

"You haven't answered my question, commander Or-rak, right?" she tried the name as she heard her subordinate say it.

"Orr-O-rack. And we are docking a ship for refit." He corrected and pointed out the observation port. "That ship."

Looking out the viewport where a huge black leviathan was moving slowly toward the docks, the small shuttles, work bees and yard tugs scattering in front of it like schools of fish.

"Coda to Kayetan." intoned the commander.

"_Kayetan here, go ahead Orrourak._" was the prompt reply.

"Sir, you may want to blow the storage shield panels from the hull _before_ you enter the dock."

There was slight pause, "_I knew we forgot something. There was a very annoying yard foreman who made things difficult. I guess we forgot in all the fuss he made."_

"I trust you handled the situation with your normal grace and diplomacy?"

Raishidda could hear movement across the comlink and then, _"Well, I called Janeway and she convinced him to release the ship to me. After she told me never to call after oh-two-hundred hours again."_

The mountain sighed audibly and responded, "Great One says, _'it is hard to walk down trail of broken branches, one should tread lightly.'" _Then, "May I remind you sir, the storage panels?"

_ "Right." _There was a soft beep of a comm panel from over the link and,_ "Now hear this, this is Captain Kayetan of the USS Storm to all work crews near repair dock twelve, I am blowing outer hull panels so I suggest all craft move at least a thousand meters from my location._ _You have ten seconds."_

From her vantage point it looked like someone had just yelled 'fire' in a gas filled room as all the support vehicles within a kilometer scattered outwards in a mad rush to escape the black leviathan shedding. Then a pause and a shudder that they could feel even through the space between them the ship as the black hull plates shot from the ship and she got a look at its true form. A good five hundred meters long it was unlike any starfleet ship she had ever seen. From her angle she could see that it was shaped like an arrowhead, more than half its length taken up by a large triangular 'saucer section'; like someone had taken one of the Prometheus class destroyers, enlarged it to epic proportions and sharpened the edges. But there its similarity to common starfleet ships ended. The first noticeable difference was the warp nacelles, there were two, but they were integrated into the rear of the hull and angled outward so they formed a mirror angle to the front of the ship. Then there was something on the front of the ship, where the arrow point narrowed, a massive plate of armor covered the front quarter of the hull, there were no markings, windows or surface divots of any kind on it. _Why would you need that much armor on the front of a ship?_ She wondered to herself as her gaze wandered down the rest of its length. _One, two three, holy-_ she stopped counting phaser banks because there were too many of them, the ship bristled with weapons and as it pulled closer she got a look at its underside where a massive engineering section was the only protrusion from the, at least, fifteen deck thick 'saucer' section. Now she could see even _more_ phaser banks plastered over every inch of the hull and on the engineering hull at least six torpedo tubes that she could see. _By the spirits, if I didn't know better I'd say that was a warship! _ But there was no way starfleet ever made a warship that big. _Was there?_

"You may go in now Captain." intoned the slight woman sitting behind a plain but functional desk.

Smoothing the lines of her uniform as she rose from where she had been sitting in a well appointed waiting room, Captain Samantha Doyal nodded understanding to Admiral Carson's secretary and strode to the door leading to his inner office.

"Ah! Captain!" The middle aged human man inside seated behind a wide desk was a familiar sight to her, he and her father, Admiral Michael Doyal, now retired, were old friends and the Carson's and Doyal's were oft seen at each others homes.

"How are you?"

"I'm fine. Father sends his regards and wants to know if you'll make it to the game on Saturday."

"Ha. I haven't missed a game of golf in ten years, I'm not about to start."

"Well he asked me to say something anyway."

"Good, good." He motioned with his fingers to one of the chairs opposite him, "Have a seat, I'm afraid we don't have much time and I need to get right to the point."

Sitting she questioned, "Sir?"

"That still seems strange, you calling me sir." He dismissed the thought with a waive of his hand and went on. "Anyway captain, I understand you are due to take command of the _Tripoli _in a few months time."

"Yes, sir. I haven't actually assumed the station yet, but my orders have been cut. I'm still picking a command staff."

"Yes, you father has been speaking of nothing else lately, and," He stopped mid sentence and looked straight at her.

"Sir?" she questioned again.

"Its, well. I have something of a quandary here. And no matter what I do I keep coming back to you." He rose suddenly and turned to the large transparent wall behind him. "What do you know about Janeway's new mission plan?"

Samantha sat back moment thinking, _what does that have to do with me? _Finding now immediate connection she answered, "Well, only what I've heard over the news, that she's assembling a large fleet to send into the Gamma quadrant. From what I understand its still a few months from any action actually being taken."

"Hmm. Well there's more." He turned to her meeting her gaze, "And, Samantha, you didn't hear it from me."

The use of her first name caught her attention, it was true that he had been known in her house as 'uncle jack' but while in uniform he had always followed protocol.

"Orders have already been cut, straight from Janeway's desk. The first ship is due to arrive there in six months."

Sam was taken aback, "Six months? To form an entirely new fleet and command structure?"

Carson nodded his agreement, "Yes, that's what myself and several other department heads thought, but Janeway has already found a captain and seems to be quite serious about all this." He sat back down in his chair and leaned back continuing, "You see, she is ignoring the so called 'traditional' command structure; after it's organized Picard and his cronies will have direct control of the fleet, and they don't seen to be wasting any time. This is a guess, but I think that she's been working with him on this for months, if not years. But while he will have operational control she has been throwing her weight around getting the ball rolling." Humph, he scoffed, "There's a reason he have 'traditional' methods, so going off half cocked like this doesn't happen!" Here he paused for breath and went on, "But that's not why I called you Samantha, you see Janeway has so totally bypassed what she considers 'obstacles' that there will not be, and has not been time to properly prepare, document, and debate the issues. She's even been able to bypass the Federation Council on most issues, the important ones at least." He got up again, coming partway around the desk, "But there was one bit of procedure Janeway was unable to simply bypass, all flag officers must attempt at all times to provide a clear chain of command to a sector fleet and her wish to just throw ships into the void with no back-up was a clear abridgement, if not outright violation of that. Well, she thought up a way around that also," He reached down and tapped a PADD sitting on his desk, "These are a copy of the orders Janeway gave to a Captain Kayetan, you see, he is to be the 'clear line of authority' for the whole Gamma quadrant. After you read it and his personnel file here you may further understand what my fears are about this whole mess. But for now, I need you to help me with this, you see, I need some one I trust out there, someone who can bypass this Kayetan fellow and give clear reports as to the goings on of First Fleet."

"You want me to spy, on a starfleet captain?" Carson said nothing in reply as she pulled the PADD closer and began to read.

Kristoffer Ingram Kayetan. His personnel file cover page was definitely one of the more colorful Samantha had ever seen. Order of Merit first class, Decoration for Gallantry, Starfleet Medal of Honor; some of the highest honors a serving officer could receive but there were more citations and warnings then there were medals.

She scrolled past the fluff and started on the real background of the man. He had joined starfleet at the bare minimum age of 17 years and spent his first year in San Francisco at the starfleet Central Basic Training Compound. According to all his instructors, even at that time he showed an almost supernatural ability with engineering problems. And despite several near failures with certain physical activities he passed and started his speciality training at the Star Fleet Technical Services Academy where he learned antimatter reactor repair, maintenance and theory, basic astro-sciences, and made it through his officer training all while taking the gold at several interstellar fencing and blade fighting competitions. Here there were some more instructors notes about his 'lack of stamina' while doing certain strenuous activities is mentioned again. Also, an incident with a upperclassman, according to a report he refused to take part in a 'traditional' ritual, the upperclassman filed a report that Kayetan disobeyed orders and then in Kayetan's statement he said the orders were illegal. Reading between the lines, someone tried to haze him and he didn't play along. Then there was a note attached to the end of that file year: Psychiatric evaluation,

From, Captain Jilanna Oreage, Starfleet academy counselor. RE: cadet Kayeten

'_In a past report I stated a worry about this cadet, his tendency to throw himself into his work at the expense of most social activity. Having finally received the rest of his medical history, I now understand why. It pertains to his genetic linage, he is descended from colonists who established Deneva. Among them were several groups who were all that remained of the products of several Earth eugenics programs. Upon further study of his genome, I now theorize that several of his ancestors were so-called 'super soldiers'. His reflexes, thought patterns(which are indicative of a three dimensional thinking process.) and corrective surgery for a 'chemical imbalance' also support this. After searching the historic database, I found that certain types of soldiers on earth were 'bred' and while most focused on tactical decision making and strength, his ancestors I believe, were of a 'special operations' type. Problem solving, agility, and awareness were their enhanced traits. This officer though is too far removed from this ancestor for this to have more than the effects already listed on his medical record. _

_Summery: although he has internal emotional conflicts, Kayeten has found to my delight, certain meditative exercises that help him maintain his emotional balance, much like most vulcans do and I believe him to be quite capable of handling the responsibilities of a Starfleet officer_.'

She had stopped right there, staring at the screen for several minutes before she thought to check the medical reports the counselor mentioned. A few commands later and she had them:

Medical records, service number: 654017D, Kayetan, Kristoffer I.

_Species: human, genetic mutation: Beta 412. This officer has a higher than normal tolerance for radiation than normal humans, as is associated with decedents of certain human colonists who had to travel through interstellar clouds at low warp speeds to reach their destination._

_ Also, please note that the files of the parents, see attached, indicate eugenics in the family history. Factors of this include, slightly higher pain tolerance, enhanced agility, hyperactive immune system and a high kinesthetic score. These factors also mean the subject needs a higher caloric intake than average, at least 2800 calories a twenty-four hour day. High activity levels may increase this. It is recommended this is kept in mind when assigning duties._

_ Note: subject is also more susceptible to auto-immune disorders and any pathogen that directly attacks DNA, please see attached DNA study, sector 5q-r through 7r-y._

_ Note: patient has had corrective genetic surgery to repair a cholinergic imbalance in his occipital lobe._

_ Note: Nanite-based treatments have been known to cause the following in this patent: flaring in the parietal lobe, dephasia in sensory functions, and extrapyramidal dyskinesia._

_ Note: the patient is sensitive to ocular stimuli. Eye-wear to adjust visible spectrum is recommended if patient will be exposed to bright lights for long periods._

_ End file overview, 654017D, Kayetan, Kristoffer I._

Samantha stared at the screen for several minutes, utter disbelief hanging on her mind. _He's an augment! _She thought using a common slang term for the so called 'supermen' that caused the Eugenics wars in the late twentieth century. Her mental stun was interrupted by the admiral.

"Samantha, you're the daughter of my closest friend, you're family, and I wouldn't ask you to put your career on hold and do something of this magnitude unless I really needed you."

Questions bubbled up in her mind and she asked first, "So how would this work? If this Kayetan person is hand picked by Janeway wont he just choose his own command crew?"

"Well, it seems for whatever reason he hasn't been using his orders to acquire crew, just equipment so far. But he has asked for a captain to be his second in command and I want to oblige him, with you if could." He sat on the desk near where she was sitting and put a hand on her shoulder, "Now let me be clear, this is a choice for you, it will delay your career some. You are supposed to take over as captain of the Tripoli yes?"

"Yes, after her refit is done in a week. I've been working up a crew on Orbit One for three weeks now." she said referring to the massive dock station in close earth orbit.

"Yes, your father has kept me appraised. Well, what if I said there is a hull being laid now, the _Ender_, Corsica class. She'll be done in about a year. You do this for me and I'm sure you can be moved to the top of the list for her captain."

Samantha was slightly taken aback, _there were much more senior captains waiting for new ship hulls, and-_ no, she had paid her dues in the junior ranks, stuck with backwater duties and captaincy of ships barely bigger than a runabout. Sure she would be stuck out in the gamma quadrant for a year, but it was a small price to pay for career move as good as a new top of the line ship. She didn't hesitate.

"I'll do it. Just make sure you don't leave me out there alright?"

Carson laughed, "If I did your father would never let me hear the end of it. No, I'll get you back to Federation space after the year if I have steal a runabout and do it myself. Alright?"

"Thank you, sir. I appreciate the sentiment."

The admiral got up and moved towards the door, "Well, I feel as if a load has been lifted, care to join me in a jilrilan tea? And fill me in on how your brothers are doing in the academy?"

"Of course." She said getting up and following him out.


	7. Chapter 7

Kayetan was having fun. Now that, to most officers, was things going smoothly and their way, Kayetan was not normal captains.

"But sir, we'll never get a full biosciences lab in here."

"Pull these, condense all this into one mark four to make room for the new equipment. And, if we take this bulkhead out, that will make enough room for a science lab. We're pulling three sets of phasers from this side of the hull anyway, so we wont need a fourth redundant control room." Kayetan was standing in a cramped power transfer room, little more than a closet off one of the phaser control rooms. Turning he saw Lallal and Orruorak poking their heads in from the door several meters down.

"Jarvis," he said to the Lieutenant who was taking notes on a PADD, "You got all that?"

"Yes, sir. That all?"

"Shoo." retorted Kayetan making a scatting motion with his fingers. "Take that to the bridge and pump it into the remodel list.."

After the room was vacated the two officers joined their captain inside and waited while he extricated himself from the cramped alcove and leaned on a wall facing them.

"So, how are we doing?"

Lallal stepped back into a corner, his short tail rising and bracing against the wall. It looked awkward, but it was his version of 'leaning'. "The final parcelss of equipment are arriving and the industrial transporters are programed and ready too remove the proper partss of the ship." he folded his arms behind him and took a hissing breath, "All in all we are almosst done with the preliminariess. But we'll need more personnel to continue at this pace." he swivelled an eye over to Orruorak, indicating that we was done.

"Which brings us to this." he motioned with a PADD that was dwarfed in his massive paw, "I agree, we've moved beyond the part we can handle with just a skeleton crew, even one as fluid as ours. On the plus side thirty new personnel have already reported aboard, but most of them are junior grade and don't have much engineering experience."

Kayetan nodded, "Good, just put them to work pulling the new hardware out of its casings." He paused a moment the went on, "I considered the matter and when I requested a first officer, this is what I got." he reached down to the overlarge pocket in his coverall and pulled out a PADD of his own. "Captain Samantha Doyal. Started off in operations aboard the _Nimitz_, promoted to Lieutenant in field after a skirmish with Jem Hadar fighters. Then it was tactical on the _Corsair _where she made Lt. Commander and the Fleet Cross in a bit of mess called the first Battle of Betazed. Was transferred to Deep Space Six where she piled up several years worth of Very Good rating reports. From there she had several runs as a first officer before giving up a position as captain of the Tripoli to join our merry family here." he flipped the PADD around and tossed it to Lallal who caught it adroitly and started skimming its contents.

"Sseems like a fine officer." he said handing the device to Orruorak. "It will be nice when we have someone to dedicate to coordinating operations."

Orruorak rumbled again, "I do have two other recommendations. The last few days I have been impressed by the abilities of the dock master, a lieutenant commander Sorne . She has smoothly integrated us into the traffic flow of the yard and consistently kept up with the demands of our schedule. I think she would perform excellently as operations officer."

Kayetan smiled, "That's the Trill dock master right?" He thought about it a moment. He had only spoken to the overworked harbor master once, and from his own time spent in the same position he knew a sudden change scheduling like the one he had made was taxing on the dock workers. He noticed she had taken everything in stride. "Very well, if she's impressed you she's in, if she wants." Shifting around he folded his arms and went on, "I'll talk to Sorne , and anyone else you two or any one else can think of. And the other?" he finished.

"Do you remember Grella?"

How could he forget, she had at one time or the other set or regenerated half his bones, "Yea. How is she?"

"She is well. But she is now doctor Grella, she just graduated from medical school and has entered the starfleet officer exchange program. And while we made do with Miranda as a medic, we will need a chief medial officer."

Kayetan thought a moment, "Yea, that's perfect, I wanted to contact her brother anyway, see if he wanted to get involved with our little adventure."

"The general, Sir?" queried Orruoak.

"Yea." he confirmed, "We'll need more than one ship to really be effective as a backup and our allies will get involved at some point anyway, I'll just include them from the start." Kayetan looked thoughtful for a moment, "Besides, this'll take care of that so-called 'debt' he owes me."

Orruoak considered that, it was the type of direct tactical thinking the captain was known for, there would be a can of worms opened though, but nothing he could see as a problem. The general's ships would be handy as a reserve, their speed and response power would be useful for scouting, but not much else. And more importantly, he was trustworthy, the type of trust that could only be gained though surviving together. Orruoak looked at Lallal who swivelled an eye his direction and bobbed it up and down, signifying his agreement.

"Alright sir, I will contact them."

"Do it, but for now just compile any others in a list, the rest will be for our new first officer.


	8. Chapter 8

Captain Samantha Doyal had, like many others, gotten caught in the whirlwind of activity that was repair dock twelve. She found herself almost wishing she hadn't said yes to the admiral, she'd known this Kayetan fellow was moving quickly, but this! It had been only a day since her meeting and already she was on her way to report aboard. That was no time for her to do more than let her father know and then retrieve her things from orbit one and transfer them to Mars. From there she had tracked down Kayetan and his cronies, not hard what with them leaving a wake of chaos behind them.

By the time she got there dock twelve had grown so full of waiting parts and supplies that transport had been impossible so she had to acquire an inspection pod to move her things over to the ship. And that had been chore too. First she had to fly a very slow and unresponsive pod through the maze of panels, wiring, even a warp core that was just floating there! _What a mess! That will be the first thing to change. This slovenly attitude must go. _ _But,_ she had to admit,_ they had gotten a lot done_, and in only four days according to the harbor master.

As she had tooled past the work site in her pod she saw most of the attention of the fifty some-odd work crew focusing on a pair of torpedo launchers, wether they were replacing or removing them she couldn't tell. But she would settle her things and report to the captain before 'introducing' herself to the crew.

And that is what she had been trying to do for that last twenty minutes. She had left her things in a room near the shuttle bay after attempting to hail a crewman and failing. Everything on the ship seemed to be running on automatic. That and someone had opened all the doors. Every internal door on this five-hundred meter ship was open, it was quite strange walking along the corridors, no one in sight with all the doors open, like some surrealistic nightmare.

Finding a turbolift had been easy, finding a working one, that had been a different matter. She queried the computer and found out that all the lifts were locked out for repairs. So in the end she gritted her teeth and climbed in a lift shaft to deck one, where the doors were open to reveal, a hallway.

Samantha had always prided herself on her composure, but this entire day seemed to be working to counter her every move and after she pulled herself from the shaft she hit the wall panel closest to her causing a schematic of the ship to appear. Regaining her composure, she calmly asked aloud,

"Computer, highlight the bridge on this display." And there it was, in the center of the ship on deck ten. She hit the wall again turning off the display, the bridge had been only one deck below the main shuttle bay where she had boarded the ship.

Stepping back into the shaft she snapped out, "Deck ten! Who puts the bridge on deck ten!".

Another ten minutes later she stepped out and looked around, it was a short hall with a heavy blast door that was open, leading to a 'Y' branch where each side had a more normal set of sliding doors which were actually closed, for once. Quickening her pace she sped through the right side doors to find, the bridge! She stopped a moment to survey the surroundings. To her left there was a raised platform with two wide steps leading to a huge master display and raised workstation with room for several crew to work, the operations station. To the right there was another raised station, mirroring an identical station to the far left, not quite as commanding as the view from the ops station, but raised higher nonetheless. A single armless swivel chair was set in the center of each circular station, probably engineering and tactical. Taking a step farther in she saw that there was a panel set into the front of the Ops station so the officer using it would face to the rear of the bridge, it was lit with environmental readouts. In front of that station a few paces away was an island consol that had been disassembled, ODN relays and optronics were poking out of where the touch panel would be mounted. And there, right in front of this mess of wires, was the captains chair, flanked by two other chairs set half a meter further towards the front, one for the first officer she guessed, and a guest chair.

Two meters in front of them was the Con, the deck sloped downward aggressively after the captains chair so by the time it reached the Con station it had the effect of being on a far lower plain than the rest of the bridge. A pilots dream station if ever there was, true, it would be hard for whoever sat there to see the rest of the bridge crew behind him, but shear accessability to the controls more than made up for that.

Moving in further she saw four more stations forming an 'W' shape with the captain/first officer/guest chairs as the middle and the main elevated stations on either side as the tops. These stations were situated so they could easily swivel to view the fore or the aft of the bridge.

Other than the blinking lights and hum of circuitry she was alone and perhaps that's why the urge overcame her, she approached the command chair and sat in it's well padded depths.

"Hey." said a soft voice from above her. "Can you had me that spanner?" it went on calmly even as she shot up, banging her ankle on a tool box that had been set under the chair.

Looking up she saw a gapping hole with optronic relays spilling out allover, and in the middle of them was a face, it was shadowy but she could tell it was looking far to amused at his new XO's discomfort.

"Get down here crewman." she stated with an edge that said 'don't play with me'.

"Yes ma'am." he said promptly. Then without waiting for her to move he vaulted from the ceiling head first spinning in midair to land crouched, his back to her. Getting up and spinning to face her she saw his face clearly for the first time. He wore a grey jumpsuit of the type favored by engineers instead of the normal black uniform. Her eyes drifted back to his face as he turned and she saw a pair of twinkling green eyes. The slight grey in his short hair and lines around his face showed his middle age but it gave an air of maturity rather than age, all in all he could be considered handsome but there was something else. It was the eyes that did it, they laughed and softened the hard edges giving him a more playful look.

"Well captain, shall I show you around?" said the owner of those eyes has he turned to face her.

She started to come down on him hard, in no way should a crewman address his senior that way but her retort was cut short as she caught sight of the small pips on his collar and her mind reminded her where she'd seen that face before . . .

The use of rank pips had been in use by Starfleet for almost a hundred years, its ease of use and simple system was easy for every race in the Federation to remember. The more pips one had the higher ones rank. Enlisted personal had one, an oval that was marked with darkened bars, the more bars the higher the rank. Then there were officers, one round pip indicated an ensign. One pip and a 'hollow' pip, a ring instead of the solid circle, that indicated lieutenant, junior grade. It went up like that until the rank captain, like she herself wore; four gold solid pips. After captain they simply started over with one solid pip inside of a box. But this man wore _five_ rank pips. It was a rare rank, usually given to some officer to junior for flag rank but given the duties of one. Or more often it was a posthumous award given to those who earned some other high award like the Metal of Valor.

She stopped suddenly unsure, then she saw the smile under those laughing green eyes and in that moment she couldn't help but smile in return, it was infectious.

"There you go captain, that's the spirit, co'mon, le'me show you the Storm."

She didn't know what to say, it was strange, she had been angry, annoyed then embarrassed, but, but he had just ignored it all and this sudden shift in the way he talked, it reminded her of her twelve year old nephew when he found something new to play with and was showing it off.

Putting a lifetime of showing the right emotion at the right time to use she smiled demurely and followed the captain as he showed the ship to her.


	9. Chapter 9

"Well ssir, I am surprised how little we actually have to do." Commander Lallal was saying as they walked down a corridor toward the Storm's shuttle bay.

"Don't be." responded Kayetan as he fiddled with the shiny fifth pip that indicated him as a Fleet Captain. "When we designed the Storm it was supposed to be a test bed for all the newest toys." he shrugged, finally setting the pip in place again. "Most of the methods and systems we used on her were later used on most of the Sovereign updates and most of the subsequent classes. I just glad they didn't tear her apart when the decided to discontinue the build line."

"Hmm." Lallal hummed back "What I sstill don't get is why starfleet hid the two that were built. While this ship is rather warlike, just parking it in the back of a sstarship boneyard seems a waste."

"I made that same argument to my superiors at the time, but they said the war was over and we didn't need more warships." Kayetan stopped, looking around at the corridor, "I made this ship Hiss'toor, this started out on _my_ drafting board. I oversaw the design, the production, I chose the systems that would be installed; I even named the class, it was just the Fleet Tactical Response Project before that. And then they shunted her to the graveyard for almost ten years. And not just that, they classified her so high that I would be committing treason just talking about it to anyone."

"Well, that's why you never ssaid anything about thiss to me." shot back Lallal with a feigned hurt tone.

Kayetan smiled and started walking again, "Well now she's mine again and no ones going to take her."

Lallal looked intently at his captain, he hadn't heard him so intense about something, not in a long while at least. "Well, ass long as you leave the engine room to me, you are the captain now, not the caretaker."

Kayetan smiled again, "_Storm _couldn't be in more capable hands."

There wasn't time for a response because they had reached their destination and the massive doors to the shuttle bay opened and they saw that their new personnel were already gathered waiting for orders.

"Sir." started Samantha, "Eighty seven personnel, fifty five junior officers and thirty two enlisted."

Kayetan nodded and stepped up onto a transporter platform near the edge of the cavernous bay and called for attention.

"All right listen up! I know this isn't standard procedure but the transporters are being ungraded and this was easier because I don't have time to meet with every one individually. I am Captain Kayetan," he pointed at Hiss'toor and Samantha, who stepped in behind him. "and this is Captain Samantha Doyal your Xo and commander Hiss'toor Shar Lallal your chief engineer. If there are any problems you will go to them, is that clear?"

After a chorus of confused aye sirs he went on, "I don't beat around the bush, I don't hold your hand and I expect to work you all into the ground over the next few weeks." Kayetan saw that he had everyone's attention now, "We have exactly twelve weeks to refit this entire ship, work it up and become an experienced crew before we are due in the Gamma quadrant. We will get it done. Toward this end there will be some unusual methods employed in the chain of command. First, you are all assigned to engineering unless told by one of the senior officers. There you will be divided and commanded by your engineering capabilities, NOT your actual rank."

This was a shock, everyone was looking around like they were trying to figure out where they were. But Kayetan plowed ahead as if unaware, "This is not up for negotiation. Second, we have to refit the whole ship at once, so you will be moving your bunks around a lot. Keep your bags packed for quick moving, and no, you may NOT sleep on the dockyard station, we don't have time for you to shuttle back and forth every day. Third, everyone will be working double shifts until further notice. Fourth, if for any reason you cannot handle the workload or methods used here, I have placed a signed transfer order in your personnel files, please do not waste our time trying to 'make it work' here, just use your transfer. I'm sure you will get a later posting in First Fleet, as soon as they become available."

Kayetan stopped so anyone could speak up, none did.

"That is all. Dismissed."

The assembled personnel vacated the bay in record time and soon only Orrourak, Hiss'toor and Samantha were left with Kayetan.

"The Great One once said, 'even a dream hunt may score a kill'." Intoned Orrourak.

"Yess, captain, I hope you know what you are doing here with thiss 'evil overlord' act."

"I hope I do too, Lallal, I hope so too." he replied softly. "All right, Samantha, I know we haven't had a chance to talk much, but I need to pop down to Earth and pick up a special piece of hardware and finalize some of our other crew transfers so I'll be gone a few days. In any other circumstance you would be here supervising, but I think this will be an excellent time for us to get to know one another.

"A few dayss for one piece of hardware?" wondered Hiss'toor, "What do you have to do, ssteal it?"

"Only if I have to." he responded dryly.


	10. Chapter 10

Captain Doyal thought she was final getting the hang of this, roughshod command style. Right now she had the inside of the ship mostly to herself, the crew had been given twelve hours leave before they started the emplacement of the new hardware.

The crew. All two hundred of them. Half of what they needed. She thumbed through the list again the faces and records flying through quickly. Her new captain had giver her a list of personnel that had applied to first fleet and asked her to recommend some for department heads. But she couldn't focus.

It was all too amazing, this whole ship was against the nature of starfleet, it was designed as a warship. And no matter how many phasers Kayetan pulled out it still was an engine of destruction. She closed the crew list and put a schematic up.

The USS _Storm _was four-hundred and ninety-two meters, putting her more than one hundred meters shorter than the Sovereign class but with twenty-four decks and a more compact design she had almost the same internal volume, but er crew was only two-thirds the size, the difference being made up through far more numerous backup and weapon systems.

_Those weapons._ It was almost scary. There were twenty-two phaser banks, a number which seemed high, but they were twelve-betas, a smaller more rapidly firing version of standard ships phasers. _ And_ that was how many were left _after _they had pulled eight banks from each side of the ship. Then there were the torpedo launchers, originally they could only fire the more powerful quantum torpedoes, but Kayetan had acquired a set of multi-launchers that could fire both photon and quantum torpedoes. So all eight launchers, six on the front of the engineering hull, and two on the rear had been replaced with them.

But the real teeth of this predator were the four remaining sustained burst phasers mounted in the forward superstructure. They were insane. First, they could not be fired while in warp, as ninety-eight percent of warp power was used to fire the damn things. They couldn't be aimed anywhere but forward, but they could overload almost any known shield type with only a three second burst. However, their power up phase took two hundred and seven seconds, almost three and a half minutes and no other weapon system could be used while they were firing. There were other drawbacks, like the interference they put out practically blinding the sensors and alerting every ship in the sector of their presence.

This whole ship was contrary to the tenants of starfleet. It wasn't an explorer, or science vessel, even with the captains modifications, adding more long range survey equipment, pulling some of the phasers for science labs adding more shuttle storage and equipment fabrication facilities. Yes these changes would make it easer for the ship on long range patrols, but it still didn't change the fact that anyone or anything that scanned the _Storm_ would _know_ it was a war ship, not a 'peaceful' explorer.

And then there was 'the piece' of equipment the captain had picked up. It had taken a few days but in the end he, with several minions and one Captain Doyal in tow had acquired a Slipstream Overdrive. The slipstream overdrive is one of the breakthroughs that came when the USS Voyager came back from her sojourn in the delta quadrant. Particularly, with the designs for the quantum slipstream drive. At first starfleet engineers were ecstatic when they got access to the data on the quantum slipstream, however, when they attempted to apply the data in a prototype ship even with their improvements on B'elanna Torres's original schematics, the prototype still failed. After picking up the pieces of the prototype scattered halfway around the alpha quadrant, the design team declared that with current technology it was technically infeasible to make the slipstream work. But one of the team members wasn't quite ready to give up and requested permission to keep working on the drive with a small team because he felt that it was the future of transportation technology. He was half right. While the slipstream core itself was impractical with the current levels, many of the subsystems involved in generating a slipstream corridor were quite feasible.

Many new power supply methods came from this derivative work but it wasn't until it was thought upon to apply the quantum drive deflector modifications to a vessel but instead of using it to open a slipstream corridor they would use it to enhance the 'normal' warp field of the ship. It was because of one of these modifications that the research vessel USS T'plana Hath, NAR-14922, became the first vessel to reach warp 9.99999999 under its own power and hold it for two minutes before the warp field destabilized and the ship was thrown clear.

To better understand this achievement one needs to understand how the quantum slipstream works, instead of folding space around the ship (as a normal warp drive) the slipstream uses the deflector to generate a 'tunnel' in front of the ship, something like the trans-warp conduits the borg use. In fact, some theories suggest that the slipstream drive is an off chute of the trans-warp conduit. Now, during normal warp flight your actual speeds will vary depending on the amount of subspace turbulence, gravity wells and anything that has an effect on subspace. This same interference is what causes the 'warp ten' barrier; the amount of power needed to overcome these effects is too great to actually generate and so the tenth 'warp threshold' is impossible.

The quantum slipstream overcomes this basic flaw in the 'normal' drive by, instead of generating a field around the ship to propel it, a much stronger 'curved' subspace field is generated in front of the ship allowing it to 'slide' through at incredible speeds. Despite this amazing increase in speed, there are two main inerrant flaws in the slipstream; the amount of power it takes, while not nearly the 'infinite' amounts needed for warp ten, is still phenomenal and causes the power systems of the ship to overload; and the speed of the slipstream is so great that sensors can't 'see' where the ship is headed. This 'quantum resonance effect' is similar to the Einstein effect seen on normal faster than light travel. Sensors of the current type, including astrometric sensors, just aren't capable of seeing fast enough to steer the ship. Even the use of 'pilot' vessels, like a shuttle, don't make up for this. Perhaps future breakthroughs will enable us to create a working slipstream drive but until then the Quantum Slipstream is too unstable for practical use.

Until that time though, we have the Overdrive. The Overdrive is a kind of 'cross' of what is known of the quantum slipstream and normal warp drive. A ship equipped with the modified Overdrive deflector starts warp flight as normal until reaching the ninth warp threshold, IE: warp nine-pont-oh. At this point the deflector is engaged generating a 'subspace plow' in front of the ship. The warp plow 'smooths' space in front of the ship, allowing the main warp field to work at vastly improved rate much like the Slipstream Drive. It is this that allows a ship to engage a maximum of four more warp thresholds. These warp thresholds are not as strong as the ones generated by the main warp coils, they can't be or they would destabilize the main warp field. The theory behind the devices use was explained in the annual Starfleet engineers log as, 'imagine if the warp drive were like running uphill through a narrow ravine dodging boulders constantly falling toward you. When you add the Overdrive its now like running downhill, on a clear open plain.' While this turn of phrase gets the point across it makes the drive sound like it will replace the standard warp drive quickly. This is untrue. While the Overdrive will make extreme long distance quicker the inherent faults it has will limit it to just that.

First, the Overdrive is _extremely _delicate, even a micron out of alignment, a particle in the wrong space, and BOOM, no more ship. Like hitting a brick wall at full impulse. Second, the transition period. The additional warp fields generated by it must be engaged slowly, about thirty minutes for each, compounded. So the first one takes thirty minutes, the next, one hour, and next an hour and a half, etc. etc. Therefore, if you wanted to go to warp 11, (which is warp 9.0+Overdrive 2) it would take a total of an hour and a half to get there. So to get to the maximum of warp 13, it would take 6 ½ hrs to get there. And the same time to disengage the drive. No sudden stops there.

Third is power requirements. Using the overdrive takes about 100 KiloCochranes of power usage. Nearly the maximum that a standard Galaxy class ship warp core produces.

These and other drawbacks mean the Warp Overdrive will not see wide-spread service other then long rage transportation and exploration. And then only in larger ships like the Sovereign, Excalibur, Corsica and Galaxy refit classes. Although there is now a dedicated passenger service running from Q'noS stopping by Earth and then to Bajor, a cross Federation route.

Now as to the Storm, there was a an additional complication, two warp cores. Yup. The ship had twin warp cores. It had been attempted before but was discarded as impractical, as well as unfeasible; one couldn't align the matter anti-matter feeds so the two cores would just interfere with each others warp fields. Well, it seemed that an engineering team, led by no less than her current superior, had found how to do it; just have them feed from the same injector assemblies. It had meant inventing a whole new method for the process, but they did it. They ended up with a system that had a massive power curve. Indeed, when she was reading the specs of the core one of the initial designers had indicated a problem with _dumping_ power, they just had too much and the warp field only took so much, the rest had to be sent to subsystems. And usually there were enough to suck the excess, and then some. But the old runabout they had tested the twin core in didn't, so they just ran a plasma conduit to the rear of the ship and dumped the excess energy there. It was odd actually, normally one designed a ship, worked out what you wanted it to do then designed a core for it, one tailored to its power needs. In the Storm's case it the other way around, they had a core and wanted a hull to use it. According to the reports they first tried a small ship, no larger than a Defiant, the _Scarab_ class project. Even with that the twin core design was over powered, its power curve was just too extreme. They added huge plasma impulse engines, massive shields and weapons banks, by then they were ready to try anything. They tried bigger. Enter the Storm class. Some flag officer had decided Sterfleet needed a response to the Romulan warbirds, Cardissian galors and Dominion battleships and so commissioned a design team. Interesting really, how the various teams came together, a weapons design team working on a new phaser system, the Twin-core team and meta-phasic shield teams, all brought under Kayetan and let loose. The Storm and two sisters were laid down less than six months later. It was an impressive testament to the engineers, designing such an impressive ship in so short a time, the _Galaxy _class had taken more than ten years to design and it wasn't half as complicated as the Storm.

Sam sighed. It was kind of sad but just because she understood what it had taken to build the Storm didn't mean she agreed with its philosophy. It was the right thing, to cancel the class build, the war had been won and starfleet didn't need a fleet of battleships running around while they rebuilt. Especially such resource intensive ones. No, it had been best to put them in deep storage and forget what depths the war had brought them to.

But now she would be serving on that ship. For a year. Well, she had her pride, spy or not she would learn the ins and outs of her ship and be as good a first officer as she could, even with the crew of misfits and castoffs Kayetan seemed to be drawing. She just wouldn't like it.

And now she had to put together a crew list

So, if she didn't have a say in which ship, she did have one on who crewed her. Security Chief and Head of Engineering were taken by Orrourak and Lallal respectively and they seemed to have someone in mind for Operations and Medical. So that left Science Officer, Conning Officer, their Fighter Wing Commander, the JAG officer they wanted to take with them, and the multitude of junior officers that would be needed to crew the ship. Her choices were limited to those who had volunteered for the five year missions and that in and of itself drew some strange types.

It was going to be a long night.


	11. Chapter 11

The Doctor looked up, a shadow had fallen across the light streaming in from outside and his grumpiness faded has he saw the figure that shadow was attached to. She was thin, lithe and had a head of intense red hair that flashed in the light of Sol filtering through the skylights to form an almost halo around her smiling face.

"Sorry Doctor, but I tried to talk to you earlier but your assistant said you were booked until next session." her smile dropped slightly and she leaned closer her tone becoming serious, "I couldn't wait that long."

Finding himself liking the young woman despite his mood, he smiled back, "Well if Sharon is turning away beautiful young women I'll have to have a talk with her." he indicated the seat opposite him across the table and she sat. Removing herself from the sun faded the halo effect but allowed him to see more of her, her slightly pale skin and her uniform. Starfleet, it indicated sciences officer with its blue stripe across the inky blackness of the jacket and the blue under shirt, the turtle-neck collar visible around the low cut collar of the jacket.

_Hmm._ He thought. _Call me a purist,_ _but I like the utility of the old jumpsuits_. It had been several years since starfleet had switched to the pants-shirt-jacket configuration for its officer core. Yes this did look more professional, and he did like the versatility of the jacket system, it meant that it was easy to just adjust that outer layer for environment, or even remove it entirely. _Or_, he smiled, _wear that damn overcoat like Kathryn_.

"Have a seat, Miss?" he queried.

"Miranda." she said returning his smile far more brightly that he could have. "I hope I haven't caught you at a bad time Doctor but I only have a few hours before I need to get back."

"So what can I do for you then?"

" I need your help." she looked in his eyes, "You see, I need you to exempt someone from prosecution."

The Doctor's face fell and he responded angrily. "I wont cover up for any one who breaks-"

She cut him off, slapping her hand on the table. The doctor didn't even look away even as people from other tables started to stare. "Look, I don't have the time to debate with you but a good man might loose his career if you don't." she said that last as she held her had out where he could see it. It was fractalizing, the fields that created the semblance of human flesh having a hard time keeping up with the violence of the movement. The Doctor recognized it because the same thing happened to him here. It was the mobile emitters Starfleet had made. It had been inevitable really, the emitter from the future had been taken, like the rest of the equipment on Voyager. But unlike the Voyager it-self it still existed, held in some lab. But the results of just knowing that such a thing was possible had the Starfleet engineers working hard and in the end they had, well, not copied, but imitated rather well its effects. Right now the doctor had downloaded himself into a half meter cylinder supported by several anti-grav pulse emitters. The outside of the cylinder was covered in holo-emitters and generated his form. Yes it was limited by its battery, but it was a small price to pay for mobility.

But that was nothing compared to what her hand fractalizing meant. Yes it revealed she was a hologram, but it also meant something else. The Doctor had overseen personally every case that was covered by the Emancipation Act, and she was not covered, she was an unknown.

"Come with me. We'll talk in private." He said rising, ignoring all the stares from people around him. It was only a simple turbo lift ride to his apartment, and they spent it silence. And when they had reseated themselves on his couches he went on.

"So tell me the story.' He said simply. It was some time before she was through.

"So." he started when she was done. "You covered up for this man, without his knowledge." he got up and turned to the window, "Normally there is a process, for this, the being in question is removed from its environment and a investigation is launched. But I do wonder, why did you, do you, trust this man?"

"Because he's in the wrong time." He turned with a questioning eye and motioned to go on, "If I can see it from out on a small ship patrolling the edges of Federation space surely you can see it? The changes." she got up and joined him at the window, facing him as he stared out. "The Federation is changing. It happens to every government, its amazing that its taken this long, really. But eventually the bureaucrats and self-interested would have their time at power." she scoffed slightly. "It was that damn war. I missed most of it, but those four bloody years of fighting, they have had more effect on the Federation than even the hundred years before."

She turned to the window, "Kayetan though, he's out of place. Maybe in a previous era, earlier in Federation history he would be fine, he has the skill. Even the willpower, but right now with people making their own plans for the way things should be with little or no regard for the Federation as a whole, well, he'll just get ground up. Or rather he should have gotten. But he didn't. And I've spent many processing hours deciphering the reason; he found friends. He has the ability to get people to open up, to truly relax. There is a twenty-seven percent drop in stress indicators when he gets involved in a problem, and-" she trailed off for a moment. "And there's something else. I haven't been able to factor it. I don't think I can. He may not even know it himself, but he just knows things, like he has an innate understanding of what a problem needs. Not what the problem is, just what, or who needs to be there." she knew she was giving far more than what was needed for her goal, but well, she had been gathering information about Kick for years, and if this failed she might not see him for while, so she'd 'lay all her cards on the table' as the humans said.

"Its made me think in circles, I even asked him about it once, in a roundabout manor, I asked him about measuring unknown factors and he said to just listen to my gut. He didn't even consider who he said it to. My nature made no difference to him. And that is why I trust him. My time with him has helped me grow in ways I never thought possible, literally. I knew what I was and before I met him, but to keep up with him I expanded my processes and found a world of unknown. And I liked it. If I ever quantify everything, the universe will be somehow, lessened. So in a way he is proof that I will never understand everything and, and that makes me strangely comfortable."

The Doctor was smiling slightly now, but she went on before he could say anything, "But truly, I trust him because before I met him I was known as 'four-six-eight'. But as I first tried to catagorize him I happened upon an epic tale, 'The Tempest' and he reminded me of the character Prospero, in that he was a man out of place with his magic. Kick truly is lost on his own island and he's the closest thing to a father have."

The Doctor was truly impressed now, and quoted, " 'O wonder, how many goodly creatures are there here? How beautiful can mankind be? O brave new world that has such people in it!' " He gave a small chuckle and faced her. "So, Miranda is it then? I've never seen you before and might not again, but I know this feeling you speak of. You are a convincing speaker and I wish you had been around when I was fighting for the Emergent Lifeform Emancipation Act."

"All right." he continued, "You don't mince words and I will not either, I'll do what I can, you'll get whatever you need. But this is it. No more free passes. We've fought for to much to risk on one man. But it sounds to me like he won't need my help again." his smile went to his eyes, "At least not with you backing him up."


	12. Chapter 12

Admiral Kira Nerys was quite pleased. Her internal smile widened as she arrived in the massive OPS center, normal for a Spacedock Class Starbase, but after spending half her life on DS9 having twenty personal standing watch in one room, even if they all had plenty of space seemed like over-kill to her, but then again, DS9 had one-twentieth the mass and personal Bajor Station had. And there was the fact that all the materials making up the station had been mined in the Bajor System, something her people had never thought they'd be able to do after the Cardassians had plundered most of the natural resources from Bajor. And then there was the OPS center itself, the materials and architecture had been taken from her home world. The ruling council had insisted on it. It was nice she had to admit, going from the rather stark greys and crisp edges of Starfleet norms to the more rounded and earth toned calm of her command station. And not that Bajor Station was in any other way normal, they'd insisted on keeping with tradition and the Promenade had been more or less been re-created, if on a much more grand scale, right down to Quark's, now owned and managed by Morn. She had looked up just as she neared the lift to Ops and the memory made a rakish grin steal across her face, if a _mere _five stories of the sectors' finest shopping couldn't be called grand, nothing could.

But now it was to the business of the morning as Captian Nog called out a 'good morning' from the master systems display. He had spent most of the years since the war working his way up to command one the starfleet core of engineers fleet repair ships, the _Edison_, but when it was decommissioned he'd decided that station life was more to his liking. So he'd come back to DS9 and then to Bajor Station when it was built in orbit. And she was glad he did, he was the one who'd come up with the idea to not totally scrap DS9 like Starfleet had wanted. Instead they had turned it into a massive sensor and weapons platform and left it where it was near the mouth of the wormhole. It was loaded with a caretaker crew and enough of Rom's eighth generation self-replicating mines to totally block off twelve wormholes and the sensors to scan half the quadrant.

Approaching the massive holographic MSD she noted a systems failure reading from dock twelve, which as the spiritual successor to upper pylon three, was always suffering from some problem or the other and made a mental note to have chief Engineer Kel just take the damn thing off-line. Seeing that nothing else was highlighted she held up a hand to Nog, who knew better to say anything yet anyway, and retrieved a raktajino from a nearby replicator.

Patently waiting for his CO to get some stimulants in her system Nog scanned his reports (for the third time) and sat down across from her waiting until she did so as well.

"Admiral, We have thirteen ships scheduled to come in today, the first batch of ships for the up-coming sector wargames. However Admiral Kag'el's _Monarch_ will be here later this afternoon, which, if I may remind you, is preceding task group three-thirty-seven who will be here the day after tomorrow according to Captain Wright."

Kira nodded, task group three-thirty-seven was supposed to be working up in the nearby Badlands Exercise Zone, a popular area for wargames with many officers, and the upcoming purview for a fleet exercise. But this particular task group had been formed to patrol the old Cardassian/Orion border, a haven for freebooters and pirates and so had a reputation to maintain. Admittedly their record _was _good, but that was due more to the prowess of the flotilla captains in spite of their commanding officer, an Admiral who was punctilious and precise in the extreme and for some reason thought that he was some brilliant tactician and so 'lead from the front', just like during the war. The war where he had been a supply officer in the Vulcan system. Though no-one said that to his face.

"Have you told him that we don't have an opposition force available for them?"

"Yes, but he says they'll divide if necessary." Nog hesitated before going on, "Although Admiral Kag'el said he wants you find an op force if you have drag one out here."

Kira nodded. Normally there was a unit of some sort hanging around the sector even it was just the old Bajoran self defense force, still maintained as a tradition and was filled with the old and the young who liked to play soldier in their spare time. It was a silly thing to most starfleet officers, but the BSDF impulse fleet maintained a good record, even against a couple of Klingon wings that came though a few times a year to play around. But currently the bulk of the force was off escorting the High Minister on a state visit to Cardassia Prime. And the rest was tending to some much needed maintenance on their impulse fighters and carriers. Kira smiled at the memory; as a former member of the force during wartime she'd received an honorary rank of Full General and she'd just spent some free time inspecting the troops. Little more than youths who'd never seen battle; something she'd never thought she'd see in her life time, thank the Prophets she had been wrong. But they idolized the old guard like her who'd actually used ships like theirs in combat against the occupation forces.

Kira sighed, but that was last week, now she was again a Starfleet Vice Admiral and had to pay attention to what her peers wanted.

"Is there anyone available to play the bad guy?"

Nog again looked down at his PADD, scrolling down though the names and ship classifications, mumbling softly to himself, "No, no, no a . . . no," he paused a moment; expanded an entry and read further. Taking long enough for Kira to get impatient and start tapping the side of the holotable.

"Well?" she interjected.

Whatever Nog was reading held his gaze for a heartbeat longer and he pried his eyes away, "Well, Admiral, the comm center just dumped this mornings traffic and according to this," he indicated the PADD, "-the first ship tasked to the First Exploratory is coming though in a couple of days to rendevous with a wing of Klingon ships and a pair of fleet transports."

That got Kira's attention, "Already?" She hadn't been expecting any movement on that for at least another couple of months. "Which ship? Agamemnon?" she asked referring to the new Corsair class ship being worked up especially to head into the Gamma quadrant.

"No ma'am." He responded, "That's what's weird, the ship class listing is, different. And I can't seem to pull more than basic data on its type from the computer."

"Show me." she commanded and he slid the PADD over to her, and she read aloud, " 'USS Storm, NCC-81018; classification: Heavy Tactical Response'." That was a new one, she tapped the corner of the device to expand a section of its capability, "tactical power rating: Heavy Dreadnaught"

"Computer, define ship class storm." she called aloud.

"Level four clearance needed." the computers artificial feminine voice responded.

"Authourze, Kira, delta, one-one, sigma, epsilon." she intoned.

"Storm class dreadnaught, designed to fill heavy tactical response role and counter proliferation of large warships found in other space based forces. Storm class build authorized stardate 73146.8. First ship hull USS Storm NCC-81018 laid down stardate 72148.9, followed by USS Tempest NCC-81818 ,

"Computer, stop." she interrupted, "Display statistics of Storm class, this station."

And then the computer complied with a hologram and scrolling list. One second in and Kira was impressed, three seconds in and she could hardly believe a vessel like this had actually been built, by eight seconds she was wondering where the damn things had been during the Dominion war, and then nearly ten full seconds in she was smiling as the thought of this ship pitted against Admiral Kag'el's flotilla of punctual pirate hunters . . .

"Computer, cancel display." To which the normal projection of the mushroom like Bajor Station MSD came back online.

"Commander Sovell," she called over her shoulder, "contact the USS Storm extend my complements and ask if her captain can spare a moment."

She turned back to Nog, "You did say they were meeting a wing of Birds of Prey right?"

Nog nodded, a pointy toothed smile forming on his narrow face, "Yea. For working up."

"Well, you may be able to tell captain Wright that his Admiral will have an opposition force after all."


	13. Chapter 13

"Sir! Target found, bearing one-two-nine, mark-three!"

"Helm, reciprocating course! Full torpedo spread! Attack pattern Alpha, fire all banks as they bear!" was the response Storm's master and commander barked out.

Twisting through three dimensions of space like a dervish the USS Storm fired two quantum torpedoes from each of its six forward tubes and began a complicated corkscrew pattern that allowed each of its twenty-four phaser banks to gain a clear shot at its foe. Each bank was made up of nearly a hundred energy coils and coherent energy could stab out from any three locations along each of their fifty meter length in as little as a tenth of a second; normally this should have bothered the Storm's foe, but the captain of that vessel had been lacking in an important piece of information: those phaser banks were not the mark nines most starfleet ships mounted, they were mark ten-betas, slightly more powerful but more importantly, faster firing. So it only took three seconds of maneuvering to allow each of those twenty-four weapons to fire three shots. What should have been a minor, ineffectual, quickly passing opening exchange; a showing of teeth as it were, was not. And indeed, instead of allowing the opposing captain to use her masterful (in her opinion) ship-handling skills to acquire advantage, it was the end for her as the referee computer compared the five percent power shots against the effectiveness of the likewise lamed shields and calculated the results of the furious barrage; USS Storm NCC-81018: no damage; USS _Monarch _NCC-79091: total shield failure, offensive power reduced to one torpedo tube, deck fifteen through five exposed to vacuum, warp power down and impulse reduced to one quarter. In obedient compliance to its programming the referee computer sent the information to the Monarch's computer and it in turn shut down the effected systems quite effectively by taking them totally offline.

Now, if the Monarch command staff, including Task Force 337's commanding officer had been as quick of the mark as Storm had been, and if one of them had realized that a point blank engagement was exactly what Storm's captain had wanted, or that the Monarch still had working torpedo launchers and both of her escorts were still unbloodied, well the result might have been vastly different. But instead they had chosen to rant at the view screen and query the exercise judge and complain of tampering. And so they were stabbed by more phased energy (turned down so they wouldn't even scratch paint) and quickly pronounced 'dead' by the game computers.

Early on this response was because at that time none of the involved captains (and admiral) had any real clue what _Storm _was capable of. And even when they did catch on to how she was armed and armored, they still couldn't quite win decisively in any of the games where the _Storm _showed up as an aggressor force. Which so far had been all but two of them. Granted, she wasn't alone, a full wing of ten Klingon Birds of Prey had joined forces with her, and yes they were all of the newer Ka'vagh class, slightly faster, larger and more maneuverable than the last generation. But still, they shouldn't have so totally dominated the exercise like they did. And it got worse, even the few times they had managed to remove the Storm herself from the fight, somehow they usually succeeded in their 'missions' anyway. One of those times someone had even 'modified' the scenario to give the twenty-three ships of task group three-thirty-seven an extreme advantage and still the _Storm _and her opforce had won the day. Granted, the _Storm _had been reduced to a hypothetically sundered hulk by her own computer, but three of the damn Birds of Prey had swung out of the Storm's sensor shadow just as they got the damn thing and finished the 'randomly generated' mission to destroy the very small asteroid 'outpost'.

Now in this final mission given them by the referee computers the role had been reversed, Storm and General Grect's Bird's of Prey were 'defending' a large planetoid, from invasion a mission that favored the more numerous and capable task force 337. The _Monarch _followed closely by four smaller ships had waited until the rest of the task force had engaged the Kingons in a nearby asteroid field and then swooped in to surround the Storm. A simple strategy that had depended on the fact that the Op Force had divided their ships. Or rather the assumption that their divided force was much less capable than the Task Force's divisions. Again though the force's commander hadn't known that Storm's fighter wing and small craft had finally arrived and been loaded in her bays. Twelve Hornet fighters, three Alpha class runabouts and a pair of Military Assault Command _Ender _assault shuttles, of all things, had suddenly shot from the flank and gotten in close enough that the Monarch had been forced to leave two of her support ships behind, which is when the Storm finally came out from behind the gravity shadow of the planetoid driving right for _Monarch_. Now that the weight of fire favored Admiral Kag'el's flagship he ordered the confidant Captain Wright in for the kill.

Which was when the Storm gutted the Monarch. Captain Holly of the _Constant _was quick to note the loss of communication from the flagship and, being next in command, immediately ordered he sister ship, the _Forward_, to sweep around and take _Storm _out with their combined firepower. Which was a good plan, as the two Akira class vessels between them had twenty torpedo launchers. The two ships began to spiral around the rear of Storm, unleashing a fusillade of 'torpedoes' (really just harmless ionic blasts in this case) into their foe. The Storm's shields flared under the furious attack; unlike captain Wright, Holly had done her research, and more importantly, actually knew Storm's CO. He had been relying on the fact that no-one had come up against a ship quite like his, granted it seemed he'd powered down a lot of his non-standard systems so that when he did use them it came as even more of a surprise, but he was not the tactical monster everyone seemed to be making him out to be. In fact his tactics tended to be very simple and direct. So when he'd split his forces keeping only the Storm to protect the target it was likely simply no more than that. Now those fighters and light craft had come as a surprise but the _Reliable _and _Corso _were taking care of them easily.

Holly watched the Strom try to slip away from their salvos by sliding back around the planetoid without success. "Open channel to the Forward, have them break off and land their troops on the 'target', and inform Captain Jaxe that we'll try to keep Storm off of her."

Turning back before the aye-aye she smirked at her tactical display as the Forward suddenly turned and spilled a flight of her own shuttles who then dived right for the surface on an 'attack run' against the facility it was their job to capture. Now was here her research would pay off, she'd been able to get into part of the Storm's original specifications and she knew that while the ship was horribly over powered, it became worse when the ship, according to the original demands of Starfleet Engineering, separated. And now with the objective contested, Kayetan would do the best thing; divide his forces further.

'Which will put you exactly where we want you.' she thought with a playful sense of satisfaction.

Kayetan, standing near his command chair instead of sitting on it was thinking of doing exactly what Holly wanted and a part of his mind, the one that was always active, exploring the current scenario and devising ways to fix it knew he was in a bind. He could win the engagement easily, but loose the scenario entirely if he did.

_I shouldn't have let Grekt take his wing so far out._ He thought. Oh well.

"Captain, Doyal take Inuzaki off helm and to the dorsal section and keep after the Constant!" he suddenly yelled out, "Captain to all hands, prepare for ship separation, fifteen seconds, MARK!"

Doyal, having moved behind Raishidda at the Ops station paused a heartbeat while her mind caught up with that absurd sounding order, but then it caught up with reality and she darted into the tubolift with Commander Sorne, Chief Inuzaki and an ensign who'd been at an auxiliary station aiding with the targeting. Hawk she thought his name was.

The ride was quick as the secondary bridge, an exact scaled down copy of the main bridge, was quick because it was literally one deck up. They could have walked there. But it was still a couple of seconds for the backup crew to power up their stations, and couple of more for her to hit the separation warnings so by the time she sat down and was ready there was a smooth but definite shudder as the ship suddenly split in two while moving at full impulse and performing high gee maneuvers. Sorne though had adapted quickly, Doyal made a mental note to make her performance as 'excellent', and had already brought up a tactical display on the main monitor and marked several key targets along the Constant's hull.

Doyal couldn't help but be exasperated, annoyed with, and caught-up in the moment all at once. She got over it quickly though.

The Storm was designed to be full warp capable when divided into its respective halves; and halves they were, there was no neck and there for no saucer section to split so a more symmetrical separation like that of the Prometheus class was the result. However unlike Prometheus Storm was not designed with multi-vector attack in mind, not that multi-vector attack had been a good idea in the first place. It seemed like a good idea, if one had no idea how power systems and weapons worked on a modern starship. Tactically a force multiplier was still sounded good, until it was quickly realized that instead of splitting an already smallish ship in three under-powered sections, one should just build three small ships and get better results. The Storm could pull off the separation trick because one, there was still been some proponents of the idea when it was designed, and two, because its had a full working warp core and actual nacelles rather than the retracting nacelles and micro cores (little more than over-powered shuttle engines) that Prometheus had. Normaly Storm's secondary nacelles were tucked in behind several layers of armor and her primary ones where they could be powered up in case something happened to the larger primaries. Now though the Ventral section had them and Doyal would have to make do with the smaller ones.

_Oh well_, she thought again, this time with an almost predatory glint in her eye. I_ have those damn over sized impulse engines and less bulk to lug around._

Storm's Dorsal section gyrated and corkscrewed under the handling of Chief Inuzaki who'd started life as a smallcraft pilot and (privately) hated the way the Storm handled. But now he had to change his mind, he hated the way it behaved with twice the mass now though, he was flying a torpedo, an Inuzaki guided, phaser armed porcupine of a ship.

_Constant _was trying to pull away but the massive dart behind her just wouldn't give any space, even closing the gap to a mere two kilometers.

Doyal called to Inuzaki, "Can you get under her?"

"Aye, ma'am!" the small helmsman called back with turning away from the display.

Turning to face Raishidda, Doyal barked more orders, "Commander, when the Chief get us a clear shot I want continuous rapid fire into Constant's engineering section, let's see if we can knock a few things loose."

Meanwhile, onboard Constant, Captain Holly glared at her tactical display, _Come on, why don't they fire?_ She wondered as her helmsman took them through yet another maneuver the inertial dampers had difficulty with.

But they didn't for several long seconds and then suddenly the arrow shaped forward section of the Storm twisted inside of Constant's turn and rotated on her long axis to bring her phaser banks to bear. The powered down weapons stabbed out dozens of times in a few seconds lashing at their similarly powered down shields, causing them to flare and then as the same few meters were hit again and again to fail entirely.

Holly yelled for a report as the computer shut down systems to simulate battle damage.

"Shields, ten percent warp power off-line, impulse down to half, engineering reports weapons down to forward phasers only." Came the shout from the engineering station.

Already turning to the tactical station before the report was Holly called out, "Re-route all power to engines and forward phaser arrays. Tactical, prepare to target their engines; helm give me a high speed impulse turn, one-eight-zero, mark, one-eight-zero! Give us a U-turn Lieutenant Markos!"


End file.
